


End Transmission

by orphan_account



Category: AFI, Supernatural
Genre: AFI/Supernatural Crossover, Angst, Apocalypse, Croatoans, Gore, M/M, Wincest - Freeform, canon divergence at Season 5, crash love era, javeys in the Impala, season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-24
Updated: 2015-01-24
Packaged: 2018-03-08 22:42:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 91,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3226205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[AFI/Supernatural] AFI had barely kicked off the east coast leg of their Crash Love tour when the apocalypse hit full swing. Of course, they didn't know yet that it was the apocalypse, despite all the telltale signs. Normal people didn't assume that just because a few things started going wrong, it was the end of times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> When I heard End Transmission for the first time, I immediately thought, “Wow, this is such a Supernatural song...” Then a couple of months later, when seated innocently in Philosophy class, it hit me. Why not write a crossover of my two favorite fandoms? Of course, it couldn’t just be a little drabble. No. It had to be a canon, long established relationship, angsty, mess. In both fandoms. Oh, and why not throw in the End of the World while we’re at it? This is probably one of the most absurd things I have ever written. It's also unfinished, and sad. I am so sorry.

AFI had barely kicked off the east coast leg of their Crash Love tour when the apocalypse hit full swing. Of course, they didn't know yet that it was the apocalypse, despite all the telltale signs. Normal people didn't assume that just because a few things started going wrong, it was the end of times, even when Buffalo New York was having heat strokes in October, and the buildings were periodically shaking like the aftershocks of a stomach flu. Perhaps there had more indicators, but the first one Jade remembered was the hotel incident. They were on a week long break between shows, starting off light, easing into it, trying to get back on their feet for the new tour. Adam was home in the Bay visiting family, planning on flying out and meeting them a day in advance for the New Jersey gig, while Hunter, Davey and Jade chilled in New York for the meantime. 

The weather had been a little weird, definitely, but Jade wrote it off as just the East coast being the East coast, and thought nothing more of it until that night in the hotel room. He was sprawled on the bed in boxers, reading a book while Davey folded the clothes they had just laundered when the lights started flickering. It began as slightly annoying; Jade furrowed his brow and peered curiously up at the lamp, tapping the shade. Then the TV, (which much to Davey's irritation had been set to news, a dull background din that was driving him insane) switched to static abruptly, buzzing and cutting in and out. 

"What the fuck...?" Davey said, creeping over to the TV and giving it a good smack. 

That was when the light bulb in Jade's bedside lamp exploded. Right when the flickering reaching a hysterical peak, suddenly glass was sent flying like dust across the hotel room, Jade up in a flash from the bed, cursing and defending his naked torso. "Fuck!" He yelped, hobbling across the carpet to Davey, who was paralyzed in shock, braced against the wall next to the television which had licks of foul smelling black smoke emanating from its rear in ugly plumes. 

"What's going on?!" Jade remembered how Davey's voice had been sharp with fear and alarm, hand clamping vice-like to Jade's bicep, nails biting in uncomfortably as the hotel room itself began shuddering, grinding and jumping on its frame like an the bed in the Exorcist. Jade's first thought was earthquake, and was going to drag Davey to crouch under the nearest table when he remembered that they weren't in California, and the chances of a huge, foundation shaking earthquake in New York was a little less likely than the fucking San Andreas fault opening up and swallowing all of LA like everyone was afraid of. 

Jade was five seconds away from grabbing Davey and bolting from the room when as quickly as it started, it all stopped. They were left in the utter calm silence of chaos suddenly ended, the smooth as glass ocean after a storm. The room was dark dusty and dim with smoke from the TV, smelling chemical and acrid like burnt rubber. Davey still held onto his arm tight, like letting go would set the whole thing off again. It was kind of nice to feel Davey touching him like that: thoughtlessly, un-orchestrated, without desire or loathing or a combination of the two.

"You okay?" He said shakily, holding Davey at arm's length to examine him. 

Davey nodded hesitantly, eyes wide and glassy and wet in the sudden dark. Jade thought briefly about pulling Davey into his chest when Hunter had busted into their hotel room seconds later, sending them both scrambling away from each other like they'd been caught fucking. Jade released him like an electric fence, smoothing hair and adjusting already aligned items. Old habits die hard. "You guys fine?! I think there was a power surge..." Hunter said excitedly, surveying the damage in their room, the rain of broken glass powder that had alighted across the entire surface of their bedside table, half of Jade's pillow, the surrounding floor. 

"I hope we don't have to pay for this..." had been Hunter's finalizing response, and Davey and Jade moved hotel rooms, so they didn't think about it at all for the next day and a half. It wasn't the weirdest thing that had ever happened to them on tour, and certainly didn't shout 'end of the world' so of course, it was soon forgotten. But then the locusts came, and Jade couldn't help but wonder if they were somehow related...the 'power surge' and the plague. The next day they just walked outside and the hotel building was coated with locusts, the air thick with the horrible, buzzing clicking noise they made. Davey was absolutely horrified, but for the rest of them this was a fuckin' snow day. 

"Dare me to eat one of these motherfuckers?" Jade's brother had asked, dead serious , already holding the body cavity of a huge, terrified locust between his thumb and forefinger. Its legs jutted out in stiff paralysis as he regarded it, scratching his head with the other hand. 

"NO." Davey had said with much vigor, arms crossed across his chest.   
"YES. Hunter argued. 

"Let me get my camera." Jade had said, tearing back to his and Davey's new hotel room to snag his camcorder, setting it rolling and filming Smith as he carefully bit the head off of his Locust with a satisfying crunch. "Hakuna Matada, dudes" Smith crowed, opening his mouth wide for the camera to see the little flakes of bug caught in his teeth, Hunter and Jade laughing hysterically in the background while Davey uttered a disgruntled "I think I'm going to be sick..." from his sulking corner, hiding his face from the camera in his sweatshirt hood. 

The rest of the day had been spent tormenting Davey with the infestation, which only took an empty water bottle and a minute standing outside of the hotel shielding your face while the huge insects clattered around you, one or two sure to land on or in the bottle. Smith was bringing the locusts he caught inside with him and emptying them on Davey (or whatever Davey was eating) every chance he had until Davey got fed up and tackled Smith in the hallway, holding him down and exploding a shaken up can diet coke all over both of them. The foam bubbled across the carpet, seething in cream colored cascades through Davey's pale fingers, clinging to the fine hairs of his arms. Smith was in stitches for the next hour, slapping his knees and playfully slugging Davey in the shoulder, pointing and laughing at the amber blotches soaking through both their shirts.

"Now that we might have to pay for..." Hunter said, gesturing towards the golden brown coke-stain growing on the carpet. Davey flipped him off, crunching the loose locust Smith had threatened him with under his tennis shoe. "Smith will pay for it." He wiped his sole off carefully.

That night, after Jade had uploaded the footage of his shockingly sober brother eating an innocent insect onto his blog, (it would be the last thing AFI would ever do on the internet,) a grey silence hung over them, some ominous sickness. Davey and Jade were settled side by side in bed next to each other; Davey was acting quiet and sullen, head pillowed gingerly on Jade's shoulder. Jade's lips rested testily at his hairline, at the slightly oily junction where Davey's skin gave way to a shock of black and brown hair, waiting to see if tonight was going to be a night when Davey let Jade touch him, or a night where he shrugged him off. 

"Are you pissed at us for giving you a hard time today?" Jade asked gently, his fingers tracing up Davey's bare arms. 

"No, If I got pissed off every time your brother hassled me, I'd be perpetually pissed off." Davey answered, voice unreadable and even. Jade resisted the urge to say, wait, you're not perpetually pissed off? but the wiser, more experienced version of himself stopped it from happening. Jade knew Davey's nuances well enough to know something was off kilter with him right now, but he couldn't detect if it was related to them. It often was. 

"What's up then?" Jade asked carefully. Davey shifted in his arms, rolling over so his face was pressed into Jade's neck, three day old beard scratchy against his skin. Jade's heart jumped in response, hand carding through the close cropped hair at the base of Davey's skull. 

"I don't really know. I have a bad feeling."  
"About what?"  
"Just...the locusts. Don't you think that's weird? And that 'power surge?' Power surges don't make light bulbs explode." Davey sounded genuinely disturbed, and Jade was just glad Davey wasn't angry with him tonight, and was instead touching him, laying against him, acting like they used to.   
"What are you getting at, man?" Jade pressed on. 

 

"There's the weather too. It's really fucking weird, for October, right?" Davey said plaintively, looking worried. Jade noticed how old Davey had gotten in the last year. Still handsome enough to make half the world fall in love with him and then break their hearts, but old. The lines around his mouth were more and more pronounced, and his eye crinkles were present even when he wasn't laughing. 

"What's this all mean, Dave?" Jade asked, tired. Davey worked himself up into these frenzies about things, he always did, 

"Global warming. It freaks me out." Davey said very seriously. Jade's heart broke a little, and he tried not to laugh. He knew Davey was visibly shaken up by all of this and needed to be humored, but global warming? seriously? 

"What do you suggest I do about it?" Jade answered very seriously. Davey rolled his eyes, letting his teeth graze Jade's pulse in warning.   
"Nothing, asshole. I just...I don't know. I feel like something's really wrong. "   
"Dude, you're being ridiculous. We've had a few storms, a power outage, and a bug infestation."

"I want to postpone the tour." Davey said, dead pan. Jade thought he was joking for a second. Davey never thought anything was a good enough reason to cancel or postpone the tour. Jade's mind immediately jumped to five or so years previously, when Davey had lied about his own health to avoid canceling the last few dates of their Sing the Sorrow tour. Even Jade hadn't known about the sore throats, vomiting blood backstage, letting the crowd sing more and more. Davey would to anything to keep the fans happy, even if it meant killing himself up onstage night after night. That cancellation had been the beginning of the end. 

"What?! Are you kidding?" Jade asked incredulously, shoving Davey off of him so he could really stare at the guy. Davey was dead serious, mouth a flat, pursed line under hard eyes.   
"You heard me."

"You...you, Davey fuckin' Havok, want to postpone the Crash Love tour because of global warming?!?!" Jade barked disbelievingly. He was really, really concerned, Something was wrong with Davey. This was not his band mate, his best friend, his sort-of lover. That man...Dave Marchand by day, Davey Havok by night, was crazy, but not this crazy. He was acting so out of character Jade was about to call 911 and report an episode of psychosis. He reached out to touch Davey's stubbled cheek, searching his eyes for anything he could read, genuinely worried. "Dave...? What's wrong?" 

Davey's eyes were bright with something, narrowed and looking hard at Jade, tongue pressed hard to the inside of his front teeth. "I can't tell you why, but I know something it seriously wrong right now. You have to believe me." The serious, lucid quality to Davey's voice was convincing, but Jade was a logical guy, and logical guys didn't believe things people told them when they didn't make sense. It wasn't like Jade thought Davey was lying or anything, he just thought he might be suffering from temporary insanity or some other brain problem. Fortunately for Davey and Davey's case, the sky chose that second to open up, a huge, floor shuddering crash coming from outside, startling both Davey and Jade out of their exchange. They paused for a second, eyes locked, before scrambling to the window, throwing the heavy, dingy hotel curtain aside. 

Outside, far away screams echoed and thick brown smoke was billowing, and if Jade thought about it now, it sure as hell looked like the onset of the apocalypse. He remembered his heart clenching in panic at the sight, at the orange tint to the sky, at the sound of far away thunder and explosives. He remembered gasping, clutching Davey around the shoulders, dragging his small, tough frame into his chest and squeezing, holding him tight. He needed to feel Davey's solidness against him, because the fucking sky was dropping fireballs. They fell and crashed earthward, setting surrounding brush and trees ablaze, sending hotel occupants running out of the lobby barefoot in bathrobes. 

"What the hell is happening?" Jade remembered whispering, mouth hot on Davey's neck. He remembered the dazed look on Davey's face, alight with burning orange, mouth slightly ajar and looking so enthralled, fascinated. It was like a kid remembering his first Christmas, basking in the glow of colored lights strung up on a tree. Learning Santa Claus wasn't real and Jesus had died a long time ago, wasn’t coming back. Jade remembered thinking then, although he'd convince himself desperately otherwise time and time again later, we're all going to die. 

" It seems as if fireballs are dropping from the sky." Davey said, sounding more amused than anything else, starting to laugh cripplingly so he doubled over in Jade's arms, buckling into him. Jade held on.   
"Dave, quit it, come on. We have to get out of here."

And he didn't just mean out of the hotel. Davey had said it but Jade was thinking it, and ended up saying it too the second he found Hunter and his brother standing shell shocked in the hallway outside of their room, beards growing in and brows furrowed, slack jawed, incredulous. 

"We have to cancel the tour." Jade said quietly, rubbing the back of his neck like he was exhausted.   
"What are we going to do?" Hunter asked, face stony and serious. "Have you seen the news?" It was like someone they all loved died and they'd just gotten the police report. Smith was uncharacteristically silent, face ashen as he stared pointedly at his feet. 

"No, what's it saying?" Jade asked, jumping when another bang thundered through the hotel foundation, followed by more panicked screams. Davey, who'd been sitting on the bed hugging his knees like he often did in disaster situations, came trotting out, immediately adhering himself so Jade's side. Jade interlaced their fingers protectively without even thinking about what Smith and Hunter would think. 

"This shit's happening all over the globe. Lightening storms, flash floods, fires. Locusts, dude. Locusts." Hunter said meaningfully, eyes wide. "I say we go home. Who knows what this all means, we need to be with our families." He mumbled. "I dunno, seems like the goddamn apocalypse or something."

"I'm booking a flight for tomorrow." Smith said suddenly, coming back to life in survival mode. "I personally think this is a load of bull crap and people are overreacting, but If something is seriously wrong...I want to be home, not touring with AFI. Sorry guys, no offense or anything." He added hastily to the end. "I'll get us four seats on the first flight back to LA, kapeesh?" 

Everyone slowly nodded, stunned into silence. All the times Jade imagined a crisis happening to them on tour, it was never like this. It usually involved a lot of hysterics and drama and running around screaming, none of this businesslike talk where they calmly decided upon a course of action and dealt with it. Smith was already on the computer, buying plane tickets and emailing Gavin, who would be the unlucky person whose responsibility it was to tell millions of AFI fans the tour was being postponed. Jade didn't think AFI fans deemed anything at all a good reason to cancel or miss a show, four horsemen or not.

Everything would have gone swimmingly if everyone else in the tri-state area hadn't also decided they were flying back to LA the following morning. Smith tried every airline in existence, but there were not four seats on the same flight. He got two tickets, each for different flights. The other two were also on separate flights, three days ahead. It was a royal mess. They ultimately decided Hunter and Smith would be driving to the airport today to fly back, because Dave and Jade refused to be separated, Hunter was not staying in Buffalo another goddamn day, and Jade and Smith's mom was having a panic attack back in California, positively demanding that at least one of her boys be back within the next twenty four hours or she was going to have a full scale meltdown. 

This left Davey and Jade alone in their hotel room with a little jumble of packed luggage and two beds, one still neat, the other an unmade disaster. It was a beautiful day outside, save for the charred remains of a Buffalo side street and grassy knoll that had been destroyed by a fireball last night, not to mention the hundreds of locust corpses that littered the pavement like confetti, blowing about like dried out corn husks in the breeze. Davey was in a shockingly good mood, despite being left thousands of miles from home in a strange state while the world looked like it was ending. 

"What got into you?" Jade asked, watching Davey flit from the orange juice to a pile of croissants on a plastic platter at the continental breakfast. His hair was a mess and he hadn't worn makeup in months, but he had a weird healthy glow to him, and it kind of alarmed Jade. 

"This is like vacation." Davey had said. Jade would look back on this later and his stomach would swim with longing, sloshing against the inside of his ribcage like a storm at sea. 

"Some vacation. Big ass bugs and no working television..."  
"Come on, dude. It's just you and me, at a hotel. No gigs to play. No CDs to sign. Just three days to kill before we fly back to visit our family. Sounds like a vacation to me, we have all the time in the world to fuck." Davey took a bite from his croissant, skinny, inked elbows on the plastic table they were sitting at in the lobby. Jade cringed at his harsh language, looking shiftily over his shoulders in case some wayward press person or AFI fan was lurking in the shadows, stalking and recording them. 

"Last night you were sincerely freaked out over global warming, Dave." Jade said, staring at Davey through his hair. Davey's tongue poked out, prodding the vacancy where his lip ring had resided for over ten years. Jade thought of how different it was kissing him now. 

"Well, what do you suggest I do about that?" Davey said triumphantly, kicking Jade's shin under the table. 

And that might have been the last day Jade was successfully able to convince himself it wasn't the end of the world.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first couple of chapters are insufferable for readers who only now one fandom, sorry.

Sam and Dean had a lead in Buffalo for demonic activity. There had been countless suspicious weather reports pointing to the area as a hot spot, not to mention a firestorm last night that might as well have been a fucking bullseye as far as they were concerned. They had been checking out a regular old salt-and-burn poltergeist in Jersey, so the trip wasn't too bad at all, and the second they started climbing upstate and noticed the locust corpses, they knew the trail was getting hotter. 

Sam was slouched in the passengers seat, elbow hanging out the window. It was weirdly warm for a Buffalo morning in October, but evil source or not, it was refreshing, and he was enjoying the way the wind tousled his hair. "So what exactly are we looking for?" He asked Dean, head lolling lazily across his shoulders to look at his brother, who was tense and stiff, steering one armed with his brow furrowed in deep concentration. 

"Right now? The Hilton" he said curtly, voice gruff. He was in one of those moods, where he rediscovered his anger at Sam and tapped into it full throttle, fuming in the drivers side like a fire left to smolder out. Sam found that the best way to deal with these moments was to leave Dean alone, let him simmer down and exhaust himself until he was bearable to be around again, run himself into a state of weariness like a dog at the end of leash. Eventually he'd run out of energy and stop pulling at the damn thing. 

"The Hilton? We can't afford that." Sam said carefully, treading lightly so as not to piss Dean off.   
"Yes we can, and we will." Dean barked, running a hand through his own dark hair, eyes deliberately averted from Sam's. "It's right next to the wreckage from the fireballs last night. We can check in and walk over."

Sam nodded, settling back down into his seat. Dean was good at this, this silent treatment that forced him to keep sulking and punished and in his place. Sam figured he deserved it, after all he fucked up royally and was still paying his dues, but at the same time, it was impossible to try and make it up to someone who was still so fucking angry at you. He watched Dean as unobtrusively as possible, eyes lingering on the hard, tense line of his brother's jaw, at the vein that trembled there like something ready to explode. _I'm sorry_ Sam thought, fists clenching and unclenching. _I know it doesn't mean anything to you, but I'm sorry._

Once they pulled into the locust-scattered parking lot of the Hilton, Dean had cooled down a little and was holding onto the steering wheel less fiercely, the fire fading from his green eyes. It left them looking tired instead. His voice was gentle when he sighed, "Sam, you go get us a room. One king, we can't afford much else at this ritzy place." Sam stared at his brother, trying to figure out the unreadable mess of lines and features there, all gathered into a mask. One king. It had been a long time since he'd heard that, but he was sure the context was different this time. He tried not to think about it too much as he bought the room, sliding the fake credit card across the desk, regarding the other hotel occupants and their continental breakfasts. 

Not quite ready to head back to Dean's less than satisfactory company, he strolled over to the breakfast area, approaching two exhausted looking and heavily tattooed men who were seated together, talking in hushed voices. Something about the placement of their hands on the table spoke volumes to Sam, but he didn't know why. All he was looking for was a couple of people to question and they were seated closest to him. So what if they looked like they had a couple lifetimes worth of history between them? 

"Excuse me?" Sam asked, sidling up next to their table. "I'm sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if I could ask you two something?" The second he said it, the man closest to him burst out laughing, dropping his head onto the table and heaving quietly. He had hair styled like some fashionable teenage girl, silky and brown and expertly cut in this angular way. It sort of threw Sam off but he still waited patiently for him to finish laughing , watching that stylish haircut shudder against the table in laughter. 

"Sorry..." The other man said, sounding faintly irritated. "It's been a long couple of days." He smiled a kindly smile, face splitting into a map of laugh lines and prominent crows feet, which blossomed from his eyes. Sam smiled back. The man regarded him silently without introducing himself, looking expectant and a little afraid, like Sam was going to ask some favor, touch him, or offer him his soul. It was a look Sam didn't think he'd ever received before. 

 

"Sorry, sorry." The other man said recovering himself with a tiny cough. "Dave was just telling me that there were no CDs to sign, and here you are...which is fine, of course. It's just funny."  
"Like I said, long couple of days." The other one said quietly. Sam was utterly confused. 

"Uh yeah, must have been. Um, I'm Sam Winchester, and my brother Dean's outside. We're journalists from the city and I was just wondering if I could ask you a few questions..." Sam could hardly finish before the two guys at the table exchanged knowing, exasperated glances. 

"What magazine sent you?" The one with the stylish hair asked pointedly, all laughter gone from his voice. "How did you even fucking find us? We canceled the tour last night, and you vultures..."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, who are you guys?! I'm from a weather magazine! I wanted to ask you what you saw last night, during the storm!" Sam bluffed expertly, looking over his shoulder to see if Dean had followed him in. No sign. Great, he was stuck in a Hilton Hotel with two disgruntled D-List celebrities he'd accidentally interrupted at breakfast, and he still didn't even know who they were. 

The pair at the table were both laughing now, crippled by utter hysterics. Sam stood there awkwardly, shuffling in place, noticing with a weird jolt in his stomach when the one man reached across the table and grabbed the other's forearm in a tight fist, still cracking up. "Weather magazine!" One choked out, holding his stomach with a free arm. "Dude, sit down, we're so sorry." Stylish Hair coughed, standing up in order to drag a nearby chair to their table. "We're in a band, we thought you were the fucking press following us...man, I'm so, so sorry." 

"No problem, it's fine. I feel uh, sort of guilty I didn't know any better. I'm sort of ignorant to pop culture." Sam said stiffly, crossing his legs. Where the fuck was Dean? Sam wasn't all together smooth with people when Dean wasn't around; he was a terrible bullshitter. Good at comforting people when their loved ones had just gotten torn to bits by a werewolf, but not terribly talented when it came to lying in that suave and loveable fashion Dean had perfected. 

“No problem, trust us. I’m Davey, by the way, and this is Jade.” Davey said, offering a firm handshake to Sam, who nodded in response.   
“Sam.” 

“Sam from the weather magazine.” Jade responded. “Pretty fuckin’ weird weather then, if you’re looking for a good story. We were here last night but we were inside, dunno how many details we can give you.” 

“It’s global warming.” Davey said matter of factly, resting his chin on a palm. Sam noticed that despite Davey’s scrubby five o clock shadow and short, if not coifed, hair and tattoos, his nails were painted a delicate pink, and he had glittery earrings in. It puzzled Sam, but he chose to ignore it. It wasn’t as if he and Dean weren’t freaks themselves. 

“Global warming?” Sam asked skeptically, furrowing his brow in a characteristic way. “Fire storms?”

“No, not just last night. The whole week things have been acting up...natural disasters all over the news, locusts infestations, unnatural heat followed by hail. The goddamn fire bombs.” Davey said frantically. “It’s really bad. We postponed the tour until things calmed down.”

“Oh, and the power...the other day, we were in my hotel room, and the lights started flickering. Then the TV was smoking and shutting on and off, until the light bulb actually exploded. They said it was a power surge, but I don’t know...” Jade shrugged. “Not sure if that fits into your weather report, but there’s a lot of weird shit going on. Maybe it’s more than just the weather, you know?” He said, chewing thoughtfully at an long index fingernail. Sam figured he must play guitar, _that_ was a guitar playing nail. 

"More than just weather, huh? Like...what?" Sam prodded, using his usual digging-for-paranormal shtick. He and Dean were fairly certain these were all demonic signs, but a guy could never be too sure. He watched Davey and Jade exchange the usual perplexed looks, trying to grapple with what he was suggesting. It was normal for civilians to think he was crazy or socially awkward because he was forced to ask prying, personal questions about everything. He figured these guys were used to prying and personal questions, though. 

"Like...nah, never mind." Jade started then stopped himself, smiling like he mistrusted his own mind.   
"No, seriously, Like what?" Sam pushed. 

"Like the fucking end of times." Davey quipped, downing the last few inches of his condensation coated cup of orange juice. "Pardon my language, but it looks like 2012 might not have been so far-fetched, with the rate at which people are fucking the world up." He finished coldly, flicking the plastic cup so it skated across the table. Sam inwardly cringed. It wasn't as if Davey couldn't have possibly known quite how responsible Sam was for the so-called End of Days, he knew he was making a generalized statement about humanity, but it still stung. Most likely because of Dean's constant, underhanded, bitter jabs about who started the damn thing. As if he had no part in it, either. 

"Well..." Sam sighed, nodding to Davey and Jade in departure. "I have my bomb shelter, dunno about you two. Thanks for the info, maybe I'll see you around." He sidestepped away, fingering the plastic hotel key in his pocket, setting off to find wherever Dean had disappeared to. He looked one last time over his shoulder as he departed, trying to put his finger on what was so strange about that couple, with their heads bent close to one another, voices quiet and careful. 

He found his brother neck deep in a charred, still vaguely smoking crater across the street, already having ducked under the yellow police tape strung around the scene like streamers at a murder site. "Sulfur," he said sharply, holding up a powdered index finger for Sam to smell. "Demon bitches. Knew it." He struggled out of the hole, grappling with clumps of weeds to successfully haul himself free. He brushed the ash from the knees of his Levis, gazing absently at the sky like it might spout a lead. Sam stood there uncomfortably, hands shoved in his pockets, wanting to say something, anything, but knowing he shouldn't because no matter the words, Dean didn't want to hear them. Not from Sam, not today. 

"Where to now?" Sam settled on, thinking it safely neutral ground.   
Dean kicked at a clod of dirt, watching it explode at the tip of his mud encrusted boot. "Nowhere." He said curtly, glancing up at Sam for the briefest moment, eyes hard and unreadable. 

"Nowhere?"   
"Turns out we're stuck here in this part of Buffalo. Some folks were checking out the scenery, struck up a conversation with me. Turns out after the excitement of last night's fire storm they were set to drive back home, but all roads leading in and out of Buffalo are destroyed and already under construction. Not to mention the airport is shut down for national security, all flights after today were cancelled because of the unsafe conditions of the sky, they said. Any of this seem familiar, Sammy?" Dean asked, narrowing his eyes and searching his brother's stoic face. Sam looked puzzled, shrugging a hesitant 'no.' 

"River Grove. Remember River Grove?"  
"That demon virus?" Pieces were starting to fall in place now, memories of a town with all roads to and from blocked, all phone lines mysteriously down. The town itself desperately trying to keep its occupants from leaving. The mass hysteria that followed, the bloodshed. "You think that's gonna happen here?" Sam asked, following Dean who had suddenly started stalking back to the Hilton parking lot, hands shoved meaningfully in his pockets, shoulders hulked defensively around his shoulder. Sam lengthened his step to keep up. "Dean?" 

"Yeah Sam, I think that's gonna happen here. You know when that bastard angel dropped me off in that fuckin' future hell hole?" Dean said gruffly, referring to the incident that occurred a month or so ago. Zachariah, everyone's least favorite angel, had a death wish for Dean's soul and a mission for his body and tried to hasten this plan by drop kicking Dean into the future. Sam wasn't exactly sure what happened there and what Dean saw, but whatever it was, it made Dean rethink his previously firm position concerning Sam and him hunting together. Whatever Dean saw in 2014 made him allow Sam back into his life, which is all Sam really wanted, so as much as he hated Zachariah, he was ultimately thankful for whatever sense the future had knocked into Dean. "Yeah, what about it?"

"Well the world was overrun with those bastards. Croats, they were calling them...those motherfucking zombie demons." Dean spat out, slowing down a pace so Sam could keep up. 

"Croats...Croatoan. Of course." Sam whispered, carding a hand through his too-long hair. His fingers came back oily, and he wondered what was the last time he showered, shaved, washed his clothes. Had to have been nearly a week now.  
"Okay, Captain Geekboy. Thank you for that valuable piece of American History." Dean almost cracked a smile, and Sam felt the perpetual guilty knot in his stomach loosen a millimeter. 

Sam was two seconds from opening his mouth to agree when something broadsided him like a fucking mack truck, flattening his heavy body against the pavement as easily as if he had been made of rags. He barely had time to register he was on the floor with something attempting to take a bite out of his shoulder before Dean was upon them both, grinding out a characteristic "SAM!" He heaved the figure up by the throat and slugged it's bloody, snapping mouth. He tossed Sam the keys in one fluid motion before returning to the maddened creature, throwing another fist into it's stomach. From here, it looked totally human.

 

"Don't let it bite you!" Sam yelled, scooting along the cement on his ass to the Impala, fumbling hopelessly with Dean's keys and hauling an automatic pistol out of the trunk the second it sprung open. He pointed it waywardly at the scrambling mess that was his brother and some nameless crazed monster, knowing full well in the back of his mind that he was in public, in broad daylight, in the parking lot of a prominent hotel. Way to be subtle.

Sure enough, hotel occupants were running out to gape at the scene with morbid, human fascination, forming a stunned semi circle around the scene. "SHOOT, Sam, fucking shoot!" Dean bellowed, scuffling. "It's a croat! kill it!" Sam paused for a split second then gave in to instinct, aiming expertly at the humanoid form draped around his brother and pulling the trigger, awarded a typical shocked gasp from the surrounding crowd. The Croat dropped to the ground, crimson smearing along the white pavement like ink exploded on a blank page. Sam was panting heavily, unwashed hair falling across his brow and into his eyes in trembling chunks. Dean staggered to him, slapping his shoulder , face spattered in pin sized specs of blood, which he wiped mindlessly from his lips. 

Dean's eyes flashed in thanks, in respect, and that alone was almost enough for Sam to forget that he was holding a smoking gun in a public place, surrounded by civilians who just witnessed him murder what appeared to be a human in cold blood. He was always fixated on trying to prove himself to Dean, and a flash of his brother's eyes that was anything other than hurt was enough to make things like the rest of the world cease to matter. That was until someone started to scream, and of course that began the chain reaction of shock, people chattering and yelling and flocking to the scene of the crime. 

"Get back!" Dean screamed, advancing on the people and looking absolutely terrifying with his leather jacket, hard eyes, and blood stained hands. "Dean, what the hell..." Sam muttered, pocketing the pistol and following his brother. "Sam, we need to get these people inside. There's more where that fucker came from," Dean said pointedly over his shoulder, raking a bloody hand through his hair without caring, regarding the shocked civilians with purpose. Some were crying, utterly overwhelmed with the events packed within the last few days. Others were standing shell shocked, mouths slightly ajar, hands wringing in front of them, loathe to trust Dean who was belting orders like always. Sam spotted Davey and Jade among the crowd, Jade white faced and looking especially thin, Davey with his delicate, feminine hand placed across his lips. 

"EVERYONE GET INSIDE!" Dean yelled, holding his arms up like a threat. "That man has a highly infectious disease, and more will be following him, so I suggest you get inside where we can lock some doors and figure out a plan before anyone else gets contaminated!" He shooed them inside, some following orders obediently despite just witnessing a murder, the type of person eager for someone to take charge as long as it wasn't them. A few protested, fleeing in terror from Sam as he approached, encouraging them to get inside. 

"I'm sorry, Mister, but I can't let you back inside, you...you just..." the pretty blonde lobby receptionist keened, blocking the entrance of the hotel entrance weakly, braced between the automatic doors as people pushed frantically past her. "Listen, Miss, but.." Sam started, but Dean was already shoving her twig-like form away, in automatic-survival mode. "Lady, let us in, you'll be thankful when you see what's coming to eat us all." He barked, dragging Sam in after him, scarlet fingers clutched stickily around Sam's wrist. 

Someone shouted high pitched, a shriek barely discernible as they're coming, but Sam and Dean were used to making out scream garbled messages; their lives often depended on it. "GET INSIDE, EVERYONE, NOW" they both shouted, Dean pushing the now hysterical blonde receptionist through the heavy glass doors and ordering her urgently to shut and deadbolt them. Sam gazed out over the now chaotic parking lot, where hordes of what he supposed were Croats tearing across the pavement in tattered and blood stained clothes, flocking to the Hilton like flies on an open and infected wound. Those who refused to follow Dean and his murdering brother inside were now pounding their fists bloody on the glass, screaming desperately to be let in. Dean was trying to convince the receptionist it was hopeless to let them in, holding her thrashing skinny self against his chest to prevent her from reopening the doors. 

"Sam, keep the rest in check, be sure nobody touches those locks!" he ground out, holding her rosy arms tight behind her back as she struggled, face a mess of running mascara. As if on cue some wannabe hero stepped from the slack jawed crowd, eyes concerned little slits. "Can't we just let them in?!" 

"No." Sam said firmly, tugging the pistol from his waistband and pointing it at the man, eyes wide and other hand held up in surrender. The man took a shocked step back. 

"I won't use this if everyone stays put. But if anyone unlocks that door, we all die, okay?" Sam said evenly, bringing out his I-know-my-shit-so-you-can-trust-me voice. He spotted Davey and Jade on the edge of the crowd, Davey's groomed eyebrows cocked in skepticism, tattooed arms crossed across his chest. Sam could tell he was a sassy one. "You said you were a weatherman." He said testily. Jade elbowed him, eyes popping in disbelief. "Dave, shut the fuck up, he has a gun." He hissed. 

"Sam, a weatherman?!" Dean yelled from the door. 

Sam rolled his eyes, using his free hand to fish a handy fake FBI badge from his pocket, holding it up for the whole, terrified group to see. It always worked, no matter how many people a crowd had witnessed him murder, the second he flashed his badge everything was immediately explained away and people trusted him. Except for that spitfire guy, Davey, whose jaw dropped, nose wrinkling like someone had forced him to smell shit. "A FED?! You're a fed? I should have known, you people are always lying to civilians..."

"Dave, shut up," Jade said through his teeth, fingers tightening on Davey's elbows. He was obviously the more level headed of the pair. Sam kinda liked Davey though. He was funny. 

The Croats had finally met their destination and were snarling at the door, fogging it up with their rancid breath, smearing the glass with strings of pink, faintly bloody saliva. "Can I trust you to not touch the locks now, princess?" Dean whispered to the receptionist, mouth against her ear in a way that made Sam exasperated and jealous all at the same time. She nodded slowly, face screwed up into a red, hot sobbing mess. The rest of the crowd had filed back into the continental breakfast room, unwilling to watch the carnage that was undoubtedly unfolding outside. Sam and Dean followed the group, which had been cut down by nearly two thirds. 

"What happened to the people we left outside?" A woman asked timidly from the arms of her husband, eyes red rimmed and wide. Sam lowered his head grimly, glancing sideways at his brother, who answered in a characteristically Deanish manner.

"They got bitten, and soon they'll be infected. Serves them right for not listening, so I suggest you hear us out if you want to live." He said harshly, addressing the crowd. "And don't be fooled. In a second they'll be knocking right back at the door, proclaiming that they're fine, right as rain, and we're not listening, you folks hear me? You get bitten, you don't turn right away. We let Aunt Suzie or Grandpa in, they'll be a bloodthirsty, infected motherfucker in a few minutes." He said reassuringly, flashing a winning grin. A hush fell over the group, somber blanket of hopelessness and realization settling heavy and cold like wet snow. 

 

"Wait, get bitten? turned? Are you guys are talking about vampires or something?" Davey piped up from his seated position on the floor, loosely crosslegged at Jade's feet. Jade bent down slightly and tried to cover Davey's mouth, but Davey smacked his hand away bitchily like he had just swatted a fly, never breaking the glare he'd cast on Dean. Dean stared at Davey. Davey stared at Dean. Neither of them would know it, but this was the beginning of a very long winded battle and rivalry that would follow them half way across the United States. 

But for now, Dean just cocked an eyebrow at this skinny, tattooed little mother fucker and said, "actually more like zombies, you asshole. Shut your trap."

Any normal, God Fearing human being, especially one who looked like this punkass little bitch with his nail polish and glittery earrings, would have instantly shut up at the mere mention of Dean's wrath. That was Dean's prior experience during moments of civilian panic, anyway. However, this Davey guy narrowed his eyes, jaw dropping in incredulity. "Do feds make habits of cussing out innocent bystanders?!" He snapped. Jade dropped his head to his hands, pretending he didn't know Davey and giving up. Davey noticed, whipping around with his fists on his hips and saying, "Come on Jade, are you listening to this fascist?" He practically stomped his foot. 

"FACIST?" Dean said, eyes flitting to Sam for help, looking clueless. Sam shrugged. "Never been called that one before." 

"Fed and fascist are synonyms--" Davey started , but he was simultaneously cut off by Jade's hand clapping down noisily across his mouth, and by Dean bellowing, "WHO the FUCK do you think you are?!" 

He was ready to goddamn yank that pistol out of his brother's hand and put it to good use on this guy and his inability to keep his mouth shut. He halted clumsily though at the look Sam was giving him, head cocked to the side and eyebrows raised in warning. Dean didn't like to admit it, but sometimes the looks Sammy gave stopped him right in his tracks, sobered him up good. He settled for biting his lower lip instead of punching that motor mouth fairy’s lights out. Instead, he turned and adressed the civilians. 

“Fascist of not, folks, if you want to survive, you better listen up. Here on out, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride,” Dean Winchester announced.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something about Davey Havok saying the word "gun" in the song End Transmission really freaks me out.

Sam and Dean spent the next twenty minutes trying to shoo everyone back up to their rooms in order to prevent the whole, people’s-infected-loved-ones-begging-for-reentry fiasco they knew would follow. Most people were shocked into silence and obedience, treading up the stairs with white faces and hands clenched together. Sam tucked the gun back into this waistband, letting out an exhausted huff of air. His fingers were still shaking. 

He was half listening to Dean brainstorm on how to get everyone safely out of the hotel, mind racing a million miles an hour to impractical extremes like it always did, when he noticed that Davey and Jade were still planted firmly in the breakfast room. Well, Davey was planted firmly, while Jade was sagging exhaustedly over a chair, cell phone open in his lap while he frantically punched numbers. 

"You guys should go back to your rooms." Sam said firmly, noticing how Dean bristled next to him when he saw who he was talking to. 

"These two?!" He bitched, slapping an open palm forcefully down on Sam's shoulder. Suddenly Dean was acting like they were a team again, like he and Sam were re-bonded to each other's sides because they were pitted against Davey and his spitfire attitude. However, Dean was the only one who seemed to think Davey was something worth getting riled up about, because quite on the contrary, Sam thought anyone who called Dean Motherfucking Winchester a fascist, to his face, twice, was pretty hilarious.

"We're not going to be herded upstairs, we want to know what's going on." Davey said, staring them down. Jade stayed with his eyes carefully averted to the floor, neither agreeing nor abandoning Davey. He looked embarrassed to be there, and Sam didn't exactly blame him. He knew what it was like to have to constantly be reining your man in because he habitually made a fool of himself in public. 

"Godamnit." Jade cursed, slamming his cell phone against the table in frustration. "I can't get a hold of Hunter or Smith, and I haven't talked to Adam since he got home. I feel sort of obligated to tell them that the hotel's been taken over by zombie vampires outside and hijacked by two psycho-feds inside. I think my brother would get a kick out of all this." He sulked, flicking at his phone. 

"No signal?" Sam asked, choosing to ignore the psycho-fed comment despite the fact he knew Dean was fuming. Which was ridiculous, really, seeing as neither of them were actually feds. 

"Yeah, which is weird because I got reception down here yesterday. Now there's no bars, on either of our phones." He said glumly, flipping the shiny chestnut wing of hair from his eyes. "Fuckin' Verizon." 

Sam and Dean exchanged knowing glances. This always happened when the Croatoan virus wreaked havoc on a town. First all entrances and exits out of the area mysteriously got blocked or destroyed, followed by the inexplicable failure of phone lines and cell towers. The idea was to keep every resident susceptible, isolated, and cut off from any form of communication. 

"Yeah, that happens with this virus..." Sam said, trailing off because of how suspicious it sounded. Dean rolled his eyes. "Good one, Sammy boy. Fuckin' great. Will you just help me get rid of these queers?"

"Wait wait wait. _Cell phone reception_ dies when a virus overtakes an area? How can a virus effect cell phone service? Will you guys just tell us what the fuck's going on?!" Davey shrieked, stalking over to Sam and Dean intending to throw some punches. Jade noticed the look right away and sprang to his feet, pouncing on Davey from behind and wrestling his arms back. 

"Dave, come on, let it go." He whispered to him, lips too close to his ear to be anything but what it looked like. Sam picked up on it, the realization finally hitting him. But all Dean seemed to notice was that Davey looked like he wanted to hit him, and he should just bring it on already because he could sure as hell take him, this little pussy firecracker. 

"Hey Jake, why don't you let your boyfriend go, looks like he wants to have some fun." Dean threw out there, cracking his neck. He was ready for this one, he really was.   
"Jade."   
"What?"   
"Jade. My name's Jade, like the Chinese rock." He'd successfully wrestled Davey down from his mania, getting him under control. "I'm named after Mick Jagger's daughter, actually, it's kind of lame." 

"Kind of queer." Dean scoffed, literally rolling up his fucking sleeves. Sam rolled his eyes, laying a big hand on his brother's arm in warning. Dean's skin was hot with anger, searing under Sam's touch. He dug his fingers in for good measure. "Come on Dean, man, it's not worth it." 

Dean and Davey regarded each other testily for a few heated seconds, breathing hard, eyes narrowed and flashing, until Jade thought it was safe to let go of Davey's biceps. "It's alright, we'll be flying out in a couple of days. Just... keep it in your pants until then, okay?" He said, voice tired and thin, hand still resting on Davey's shoulder. He turned him around to look him in the eyes, brows raised. "Please?" Jade added. 

Davey wrenched his arm away, looking wholly offended. "Please?! You're not allowed to beg me for anything other than-"

"Sorry to interrupt the marital spat, boys, but you won't be flying back in a few days." Dean barked, crossing his arms and widening his stance in a defensive, alpha dog manner. 

"What do you mean? We have a flight booked for Wednesday." Jade said, letting his hand slide down Davey's forearm and tighten around his wrist. Sam noticed Davey wrench his away from the touch, glaring at Jade over his shoulder. Marital spat indeed. 

"National security, all airports are closed until further notice." Sam said, watching Davey and Jade's jaws drop.

"You've got to be kidding me." Jade scoffed, flipping open his fancy looking phone immediately, and frantically scrolling through contacts, looking to his electronics like they might explain away this circumstance. Of course, nothing drastic had changed within the last few seconds and he still was without reception, hopelessly looking to call or text his brother but knowing the effort would be fruitless anyway. Davey stood next to him, silent for once, eyes wide and a little scared. 

"Nope, not kidding." Dean said cheerfully, smiling a shit eating grin at Davey.   
"You're not feds." Jade said finally, breaking the heavy, thick silence that had invaded the room after the plane realization. He slid his phone exhaustedly back into his pocket, sagging down into a nearby chair and rubbing his temples, hair falling in clean, shiny chunks across his weary face. "You can't be feds." 

Sam was way the fuck done arguing and listening to his brother terrorize innocent citizens with truths they couldn't handle. Sam and Dean were accustomed to chewing impossible facts, swallowing them, and popping them full with a few rounds of rock salt or silver while they were at it. But normal people? Especially celebrities? They could hardly handle exploding light bulbs, let alone exploding light bulbs followed by locusts and fire storms and the zombie demon plague turning the world into a hostile quarantine zone. It was a lot for one day, and while the rest of the normal folk were just sitting up in their rooms crying and pretending all this wasn't happening or what have you, Davey and Jade were down here in the lobby, arguing with federal officers. Sam was sort of blown away. 

"Wait, how are we going to get home?" Davey asked slowly, the sarcastic venom gone from his voice for the first time since Dean had entered the picture, replaced with hesitance, fear. Jade sat quietly behind him, looking like he wanted to touch him but refraining because of some long running, nameless fear he'd conditioned himself to obey. Sam recognized it in an instant, the restraint of a person who wanted something but knew better of it. 

"I don't know, figure it out yourself, man." Dean snapped, jingling the keys to the Impala in his still blood speckled palm. "It's our job to save you, not to drive you back home before curfew." 

"No Dean, he has a point, how are we going to help all these people out? We're not going to just leave them here and wait for the virus to clear like last time, we have to--" Sam started to argue, but he was cut short by Dean's finalizing glare. 

"What are you suggesting, we take these bitches with us?" Dean said incredulously to Sam, throwing a disbelieving arm in the air and gesturing to Davey and Jade, who were standing like expectant children, hands on their hips. Well, in Davey's case. Jade was still slightly slumped, overwhelmed by all this federal mayhem. 

"No, Dean, I'm just saying we should really think about how we're going to save these people..." Sam stumbled over his own words, hating how they felt like lies on his own lips. His business was, and always had been, saving people and killing the bad guys. Only now did he realize how fucked up this process had become in his mind over the last year he spent manipulated by Ruby, how easy it had been to justify actually _being_ the bad guy by believing he was still "saving" people. He often caught himself, like right now, for instance, trying to "save people" even in hopeless, illogical situations in order to compensate for that year spent confusing his business, twisting it into an addiction. He bit back his words in shame, watching Dean's eyes because he knew they saw through him, always did. 

"Well, we're not going to kill ourselves over trying to make their lives easy. We saved them from the croats, now we set them up with some water and rations and be on our merry way trying to find the goddamn fucking Devil, Sammy." Dean was shouting by the end of the statement, eyes hard and flashing, hands tightening menacingly over the barrel of his gun. Sam cringed away from him, teeth set tight. 

"The Devil?" Davey said slowly, breaking the pregnant silence.  
"Yes the Devil. See, you want nothing to do with our sorry asses, okay?" Dean snapped at Davey, holding up a finger to shake at him like he was an unruly dog, banging his dish on the floor begging for food. 

"Where are you looking for the devil?" Jade asked, dazed and far away from the conversation, only half hearing what anyone was saying from his place underwater, in shock. He was vaguely aware of the fact that the tall fed... the weatherman... Sam... whoever the he was, kind of knew about he and Davey for some reason unbeknownst to him and for the first time, this didn't matter. It never did, maybe, whether or not anyone knew, because they were all gonna die.

"In California." Sam answered automatically, forgetting that these guys weren't hunters, just merely persistent. "Um, that's what our latest lead is saying anyway." 

Davey wanted to laugh. He really did. None of this made sense, in fact it sounded like the premise of a bad supernatural TV show. But Jade wasn't laughing, so Davey kept his mouth shut, tried to remain somber instead of amused about the fact a federal agent was telling him that he not only believed in the devil but was looking for him in California.But it was damn amusing. This whole thing was fucking ridiculous. Davey had never seen anyone die before today, and he was shockingly okay with it, despite being a humanitarian or whatever. I mean, what's one miserable person wiped off this miserable, overpopulated, polluting, animal-abusing planet? A godsend, Davey decided. That is, if Davey believed in God.   
"So you're going to California?" Jade said slowly. 

"Well yeah, once we blow this popsicle stand." Dean answered, cocking an eyebrow. 

Davey and Jade met eyes, Jade's exhausted and cloudy, Davey's bright and rather crazed. Jade could tell that the long lasting, ill-fated goth phase Davey had endured for so many years had never quite worn off and this was it rearing it's ugly, bottle black head, the undying fascination Davey had with the macabre and morbid. No matter how hard Davey tried to pretend he had grown out of his love of graveyards and the Nightmare Before Christmas, he still had fucking Halloween and Tim Burton sleeve tattoos and like it or not, was totally getting off on the Devil being in California, and Buffalo New York being infested by flesh eating zombie vampire things. He wanted to cancel the tour because he was afraid of global warming, but the apocalypse? That was okay. Jade was a tiny bit exasperated, a tiny bit touched. Jade knew what Davey was going to say before he said it, loving a guy for that long did that to you. 

Most horrifyingly, Jade knew he was going to agree to it before he said it. Loving a guy for that long? It did that to you too. 

"Take us with you." Davey said plainly, dead serious. Jade felt his face hit his palm.   
"Excuse me?" Dean said like he didn't quite hear Davey, green eyes wide and amazed and taken way the fuck aback. 

"You should take us with you. It's your obligation as a fed, looking out for the country's citizens." 

"God fucking dammnit, you little prick, I'm not a fed!" Dean bellowed finally, yanking his fake badge from his pocket and chucking it at the floor. "I'm Dean Winchester, this is my Brother Sammy, and we're fucked up, heartless sons of bitches raised by a crazed, evil-hunting father who taught us to kill ghosts and demons and _are looking for the devil,_ do you still fucking want to come with us to California? " He screamed, cheeks burning scarlet and a blush creeping up on his tendon-stretched neck, veins becoming thick and swollen. 

Sam was shocked. He'd witnessed a lot of different shit from Dean, but never had he seen him lose it like that and willingly blow their cover. It made them look insane and gave away the true nature of their family business, illegal aspects and all.   
r32;" Oh my god, that makes _so much more sense!"_ Davey answered, spinning around to look at Jade, who seemed just as puzzled as ever, lips moving soundlessly before he finally managed to mutter, "I knew you weren't feds, with that car..."

"You're paranormal investigators! Everything makes sense now," Davey said, clapping his hands together. 

"We're NOT paranormal investigators, we're HUNTERS" Dean snapped. "Paranormal investigators go into fake haunted houses with fancy equipment and scream at every goddamn noise they hear, Hunters kill demons and save people and try to stop the fucking apocalypse!" Dean actually stamped his foot, throwing a fucking tantrum or something. Sam was thoroughly amused, complacent to see that Dean's masculinity was being challenged by this short, skinny guy in nail polish. 

"I don't fucking care what you do for a living, you two are going to California, and that's where Jade and I need to be." Davey said firmly, hip popped out and arms crossed. It was an unnerving sight: facial hair, muscular biceps, and a womanly stance. Regardless, he was sort of terrifying, and Sam knew terrifying. He'd slain werewolves. 

"Will you two excuse me for a second, I need to have a word with my brother." Sam said calmly, hooking his hand in Dean's elbow and dragging the fuming, hulking ball of tension a few steps away. "Come on Dean, they just want to see their family. You know how important family is, and we could always see if Cas could use his angel powers to teleport them or something..." Sam whispered. 

Dean didn't seem to think it was necessary to whisper. "Sammy?! Am I hearing you right? You want to bring these queers fucking road tripping with us in MY BABY? Dude are you crazy? " he yelled, yanking his arm possessively back from Sam's condescending grasp. He didn't want to be dragged around like a fucking little puppy in a harness by his baby brother, of all people.

"How do you know they're queer? And why do you care?" Sam wanted to add, _how dare you call someone else queer when you've had your mouth on my..._ but stopped short because it was neither the time or the place. He had to work on being Dean's brother and partner again after all that had happened, the "more" part of their relationship was long dead and could come later, if at all. Sam had to deal with that. 

"Of course they're queer! The one has that hairstyle and that other one, the ASSHOLE, is practically setting the whole place on fire with his pink ass nail polish..."

"Dean. Why does it matter. They're human beings who need help and that's what we do, right?" Sam said desperately. His Saving-people-to-make-up-for-royal-mistakes-made-in-the-last-year-like-starting-the-apocolypse-mode was kicking in full throttle. 

"We save people from monsters, we don't give them rides home." Dean barked, glaring hard at Sam with his brow furrowed into a hard crease. "Plus, since when do we cart civilians around with us in the Impala?" He added incredulously. 

"We're not just ordinary civilians!" Davey piped up from where he could obviously overhear their conversation, looking mortally offended. Jade must have known what was coming because he laughed a little to himself from his passive, shocked place a few paces behind Davey, face still white. 

"Then what are you, other than a fag?" Dean said coldly, regarding his knew adversary like their were two pit-bulls in a dog fighting ring. 

"We're _celebrities!"_ Davey snapped triumphantly, and Jade started cracking up, the sort of hysterical, uncontained laughter of someone who knew everything that was happening was bad but couldn't manage to change it, and had to swallow it instead. 

"Oh _please!"_ Dean yelled, throwing his arms in the air in utter exhaustion. "No, they actually are..." Sam started to argue, but he was startled into silence by a scream from upstairs, high pitched and gargling like the throat it ripped from was full of blood and saliva, the scream of someone about to die. Sam looked alarmed, eyes flitting to Dean, biting his tongue and whipping the gun back out of his waistband, following his now alert brother's lead of dropping into a defensive stance, ears and eyes open. They communicated tacitly in times like this, solely with brows and chins and eye contact. Even after everything that had happened within the last year, Sam and Dean knew this language like they knew English. 

"What now?" Davey yelped, whipping around to turn to Jade, who was sitting stock still and anxious, eyes fixed on the foot of the stairs like whatever was still keening miserably would stumble down them, bleeding and horrible, any second. "Jade, come on.." Davey heaved him up, actually listening when Sam shouted to them, "stay behind us, okay?" 

"I'm not going to let you boss us around anymore if you're not _feds..._ " Davey snapped. 

"Will you shut up, if I can't hear this thing you're going to get killed!" Sam hissed over his shoulder, eyes narrowed. Whatever was causing the commotion upstairs gained volume, screaming now accompanied by a cacophony of similar voices. "I bet one of those idiots let someone in..." Dean mumbled to Sam, jutting his chin in the direction of the staircase. Sure enough, a woman stumbled down, mauve dress torn and sweater disheveled, hair a graying brunette mess and with tear streaked mascara. Dean smiled, satisfied. 

"Good timing, lady." He muttered, ignoring her hysterical babble.   
She approached them sobbing, hands held out in defense and surrender. "I--I--I just thought he was fine, my husband, he wasn't even bleeding!" she sobbed, staggering towards them with her mouth ajar and crying, a string of saliva dribbling down her bottom lip. Sam heard either Davey or Jade curse behind him, their similar voices getting confused in the tense air pulled taut all between them. 

"Did you let someone in?" Sam said evenly, lowering his gun and walking slowly towards the woman. She hardly regarded his advances, merely swaying on the spot and tangling her fists within the stressed fabric of her clothing, shaking her head miserably. "I thought he was fine, he looked fine, and then he _bit me..."_

"Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Sammy, she's infected, clear out!" Dean said, alarmed, his mind racing. He knew that if she was turned by her former husband, he was turning the rest of the meager hotel occupants into Croats just like himself, and in a matter of minutes the building would be crawling with demon spawn, all blood thirsty and maddened with the virus. It was as good of an excuse as any to be getting the hell out of dodge with his brother and back on the road, on task. This was a detour made too late, and now the city was infected. Some things you won, and some things you didn't. Some fellas are lucky and some ain't. 

"We need to get to your car," Jade said mutedly behind them, and Dean just about lost it right there. He whirled around, barrel of his gun held tight in his right fist, reinforcing the fist he was going to deck someone with, first goddamn person he saw, in fact. "I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE CELEBRITIES, YOU'RE NOT COMING WITH US!" He bellowed, unfocused, off guard, fist raised to come smashing down into one of those fucking insolent pretty faggy faces... and oh so stupid. He didn't even get to hear Sam scream his name, all he heard was Sam's gun going off uselessly at the ceiling coupled with the dull crunch of a the woman, now fully changed, colliding fully with his brother. And she didn't even stop there, she and Sam fought and scrambled across the tile, knocking into poor, still dumbstruck Jade who sprawled on the linoleum in a startled disaster of limbs. 

Then she was upon both of them, teeth were gnashing and her balled fists flailing wildly. Sam was doing the best he could to fight her off, losing hold of his pistol which skidded across the white tile lobby floor, halting right in front of Davey Goddamn Havok. Davey looked at the gun like it was a foreign object, stooped down, and picked it up in slow motion, thoroughly perplexed by the weight of it in his hand, the oily slick of metal under his shaking fingers. 

Davey had never held a gun before. He considered himself a lot of things, pacifist included, and he didn't like the idea of a gun's power, it's instant, mechanical gratification. But Jade was on the floor, eyes wide and cowering under his skinny arms like a kid getting pushed around by the class bullies in middle school... only the bullies had an infectious disease and the only people who may or may not stand up for them were devil-hunting, homophobic, paranormal investigators that already hated Davey, so he figured that if there were ever time to hold a gun, this was it. 

So Davey narrowed his eyes, raised the weapon in his hands, and aimed it at the woman. His fingers were shaking and he'd never pulled the trigger on anything other than a lazer tag gun or a water pistol, but he trusted that the part of him that loved Jade would never let his body do anything that hurt him, so he tightened his fingers, eyes shut tight but he'd made his decision. 

Before Dean Winchester could even get his pistol pointed somewhere that didn't threaten any of his brother or Jade but got the job done, Davey had shot the Croat with expert, albeit blind aim, and it now lay twitching on the floor, a crimson spray littering the linoleum gaudily like spilled punch. Davey's eyes were still shut when he dropped the gun to the floor with a noisy metallic clatter, inhaling a ragged dry sob and holding his face in shaking hands. Everyone was silent for a good ten seconds. Then Jade scrambled up from the floor, disentangling himself from Sam's heavy legs and the now dead Croat's arm, rushing over to Davey.   
"Dave, Dave, fuck are you okay?" 

"Are _you_ okay?" Davey whispered, letting himself be dragged into Jade's embrace, face muffled into Jade's shoulder and against his neck. "You smell like shit." He whispered and kind of laughed, kissing any skin he could reach, not caring if anyone was looking. It didn't matter anyway, Sam and Dean were too involved in each other, Dean hauling Sam to his feet and dusting him off, trying to bluff, hating he hadn't been the one to fire that shot. 

"Yeah, things shit when they die, apparently..." Jade mumbled into Davey's hair, breathing him in, inhaling any smell other than the blood and fecal smell of death. His eyes were burning with gun smoke, tearing up into Davey's scalp. At least he thought it was gun smoke. Not the effect of watching Davey kill someone to save him, or whatever. He gritted his teeth, not caring that some of Davey's hair was in his mouth, tasting sharp and sour with fear. 

"This is our cue to leave, guys." Sam coughed, breaking the taut silence. Jade looked out over Davey's shoulder, mind made up for both of their sake. "We're going, right?" He said quietly, rubbing up and down Davey's arms with his palms, oblivious to how questionable it may or may not have looked to Sam and Dean. He was doing it almost absentmindedly, needing to be attached to Davey physically without having to worry about what anyone thought about him and his manhood. "Right?" 

"Yeah, yeah if you can get in the car, you can come to California." Sam mumbled without looking at Dean, bending at the waist to scoop the gun off the floor from where Davey had discarded it like a poisonous snake. 

"What?! Sammy?" Dean barked in warning, one eyebrow raised. "You're kidding, right?" 

"No. He saved my ass. You had a gun, where were you? They could be a helpful asset." Sam answered coldly, shrugging his jacket on. Something crashed above them, sounding very like human weight colliding with the floor, perhaps being thrown around by the increasing population of Croats multiplying upstairs like maggots in a warm corpse. Dean stared at Sam, eyes narrowed sharply, pretty lips opening for a split second to say something but thinking better of it. His jaw snapped shut and he turned his back, fingering the keys in his pocket. 

"Alright then. Let's go." He said gruffly, keeping his eyes averted and fixed on the tiles, hands jammed up to the wrists in his Levis. Davey and Jade followed silently, relieved but still visibly shaken up. Davey had already hauled all of his luggage down from their room early in the morning, clinging to some false hope that Smith had lied to them or something and he really had booked enough seats on the flight. Jade had called him crazy and anal, but they were both glad his weird compulsive habits saved them from a trip upstairs into the quarantine zone to retrieve their ample suitcases. 

Though the parking lot seemed clear, neither Sam nor Dean could be too sure, and they raced across it with their guns held defensively, surveying to make sure the coast was clear before motioning for Davey and Jade to follow them, all that fucking Pink Hello Kitty Louis Vouitton luggage in tow. Dean was mortified. "That SHIT is going in MY BABY?" He wailed, holding open the trunk as Davey shoved one suitcase in after another, stuffing them into the corners and trying to avoid the few shotguns and leather bound books of lore scattering the trunk. He ignored Dean, pointing to the Devil's Trap etched in chalk on the inside of the trunk. "Are you trying to find Satan because you worship him or something?" He said snidely. 

Dean rolled his eyes, just ignoring the whole mother fucking question and all of its blatant ignorance and stupidity and fury-inducing insult. "Will you just shut your pie hole and work on getting all your diva equipment into my trunk?? What do you need all this shit for anyway?" He snapped disdainfully, refraining from commenting any further on the cutesy, chubby little white kitties that paraded around on all that powder pink synthetic leather. After all, the guy saved his brother, gay ass luggage or not.

Dean supposed he could live through a few minutes of not spouting every homophobic slur that raged in his head every time Davey so much as opened his mouth. He felt kind of bad for this Jade guy, having to trail along after a bona fide diva psycho all the time. Had to get exhausting. 

"What does it matter to you? I fucking saved Sam a few minutes ago, remember? I think I deserve a little respect."   
Jade almost burst out into song. That's how he got in disaster situations. Crazy. He shut his mouth, ducking silently into the backseat and wondering what the hell was wrong with him. 

"It was a lucky shot. Now cut the chit-chat and get in the car, okay? You're about ten seconds from getting us all devoured and infected." Dean slammed the now packed trunk, shoving Davey by the shoulders and directing him to get his sorry ass in the car, stalking sullenly to the drivers side. 

"I thought all the roads were closed...?" Sam mused as Dean turned the key in the ignition, patting the steering wheel affectionately as his baby roared to life. "Yeah, well, we go off-roading." he decided, slapping Sam's thigh and leering over his shoulder. "How does that sound, _celebrities...?"_

Davey and Jade exchanged exasperated glances, slumping down into their seats sighing. They supposed a trip to California was satisfactory, even if provided by Devil Worshipping, off-roading, ghost hunters. Some things worked to their advantage, some didn't. Some fellas are lucky and some ain't.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story, much like Supernatural, is kind of a fucking mess.

You'd think Jade's ass was accustomed to hurting, seeing as he regularly subjected it to abuse, but regardless of this fact he was having a hell of a time in the Impala's backseat. Dean was an expert if not slightly crazy driver, but the shocks on such an old car made the off roading absolutely miserable. Jade felt like all his guts had been rearranged, not to mention he probably had a hernia or two after all the jerking and potholes. This pain was nothing in comparison to what emotional turmoil was crippling him, keeping him quiet and curled up in the backseat. His head was pillowed against Davey's sweatshirt, which shielded him from the window he kept continuously bonking into every time they careened over another rocky outcropping or fireball induced crater. 

He'd pretty much lost sense of time, but after what seemed like hours of fetal positions and deep breaths and feeling absolutely shocked into numbness, he began having coherent thoughts again. Most of these thoughts centered around the stark, heartbreaking image of Davey holding a gun, eyes shut tight, jaw shut tighter. He kept on replaying the sound of the shot, the way Davey had scrambled to haul him up, pulling the trigger without a second thought the instant he knew Jade's life was in danger. Jade couldn't quite wrap his mind around how easily Davey was willing to murder someone to save him, even if that someone had been transformed into a maniacal zombie vampire. Jade knew he would do the same for Dave in a heartbeat, but him? His fault? His life? It was a hell of a lot to think about. 

Not to mention the lunatics they'd somehow managed to shack up with were bickering nonstop up front about the most insane shit Jade had ever heard, and he was ninety nine percent certain they were certifiably psychopathic. He'd concluded they were either religious zealots (Jade definitely overheard muffled talk about angels) or Satanists (they were, after all looking for the devil and had alluded on multiple occasions how Sam was a so called 'vessel' for said entity). The most disturbing part of this whole motherfucking discussion that Jade kept on hearing bits and pieces from was that there was a great possibility that they weren't bullshitting anyone and this was the truth. 

If someone had told Jade prior to the Crash Love tour that they were hunting the devil and zombies were real, he would have been totally, comfortably skeptical. But now, after seeing Croats, or whatever they were called, attempt to tear his own throat out and driving Davey to fucking shoot the place up, he wasn't comfortable with skepticism at all. After that, who the hell was he to tell anyone the Devil or angels or what have you didn't exist?

Dean and Sam had ceased their hushed, rapid fire argument about the end of times, both men sitting sullen at opposite sides of the car. The only sounds were the pained revving of the engine as it cut across grassy, muddy knolls and fuckin' Rat of all the shitty bands in the world playing quietly from the stereo, sound distorted and gravelly. Static was cutting in and out, just like the static in Jade's mind, punctuated by Davey's index finger tightening against the trigger. Finally, Davey spoke, breaking the silence. 

"Jade?" He said quietly, shifting across the seats to he was sitting in the middle, thigh pressed flush to Jade's. "You're not wearing your seatbelt," Jade couldn't quite meet his gaze, mumbling lamely to him instead, hiding behind his hair like he usually did. Nevertheless he allowed Davey to reach into his lap for his clammy hand and interlace their fingers. "I...you really scared me." Davey continued quietly, something small twitching near his eye. 

Jade regarded him shiftily, a lump forming in his throat like he knew it would, feeling swollen and tight. "Jade, look at me." He whispered, reaching to brush the chestnut hair from Jade's eyes, letting his thumb trace the contour of his eyebrow in his process. His expression was searching, and Jade jerked away from underneath it, pushing Davey off of him. 

"Not in front of them." He said quietly, looking up at Davey briefly with pleading eyes, teeth biting into his lower lip. Davey's face changed in a split second, a hurt look, disappointed. Jade couldn't read it exactly because as soon as it surfaced it disappeared again, replaced with a quiet, resigned understanding. Jade thought Davey might tell him off but he merely nodded, dropping his hand to pat Jade's narrow thigh once, gently, meaningfully. Then the warmth of his body was gone, scooting back to his side of the backseat, settling in. 

"Road!" Dean finally crowed triumphantly, swerving abruptly to the right and lurching up onto the highway. laughing to himself. The truth was that they'd been driving parallel to the road for up to a half hour, but the guardrails had prevented them from getting back on. It was the equivalent to dying of thirst and standing next to a river you were unable to reach. Jade sighed in relief when they drove onto the smooth pavement, escaping the increasingly rocky boonies. 

"Poor baby, is that better?" Dean cooed to the car, patting the steering wheel like it was the curve of a woman's hip. Davey caught Sam rolling his eyes in the rearview, and smiled. 

"So, you two queers are pretty quiet back there, Croat got your tongue?" Dean asked, glancing over his shoulder accusatorially.   
"Really, the homophobic slurs are getting old," Davey sighed. "Plus, can't you be civil to me since I saved your fucking brother?" 

Dean scoffed. "Like I said before, lucky shot. And all it got you was in my car, no one said I had to tolerate your company once you got here, right?" Dean bitched and Sam's eyes slid shut in exasperation. 

"Give it a rest, Dean," He said automatically like it was his second nature response to everything. he turned around to face Davey, craning his neck.   
"I appreciate you saving me, even if some people don't." Sam said warmly. It was Dean's turn to roll his eyes, which he did. With gusto, muttering "oh please..." under his breath. 

"So what are you guys celebrities for, anyway? I sure never heard of you." Dean said gruffly, slapping at the radio as if that would help it's reception. After Dean died, Sam inherited the Impala for a short while that seemed like an eternity. During that time period he'd had an ipod converter installed that still existed upon Dean's return to the land of the living, but Dean refused to acknowledge it's existence and insisted upon the cassette player and radio that were practically from the age of the dinosaurs.   
"Uh, we're in a band." Jade grumbled, surprising Davey with any contribution to the conversation. 

"Yeah, well I know that much. How come I never heard of you?"  
"Because you live under a rock." Sam interjected. "What's the band called?"  
"AFI, stands for a fire inside," Davey answered, his standard response to anyone who asked, interviewers and the like. Dean made an obvious puke-cough noise from the drivers seat. 

"Well _that's_ gay," He scoffed, shaking his head in disdain. Sam, on the other hand, looked suddenly perplexed, brow furrowing and mouth hanging open as he struggled to remember, scratching at his scalp. "Huh...did you guys put out an album...um...this one CD. The cover was all black...and..."

"Sing the Sorrow," Jade and Davey answered in unison. Sam's eyes widened.   
"Yeah. Totally owned that. Listened to it all the time in college."

"Oh Jesus fucking Christ Sammy! Sing the fucking Sorrow? Why don't you go slit your wrist already, you and your lame ass emo phase..." Dean barked, completely appalled. The second headstrong eighteen year old Sam broke free from the confines of the not so savory family business, he'd taken his teen angst out at Stanford by wearing black and listening to Sing the Sorrow. Dean would never let him hear the end of it. 

"We are _not_ an emo band!" Davey said coldly, his eyebrows raised as far as possible so they were almost resting against the edge of his hairline. 

"Alright then, emo kid." Dean answered snarkily. Jade was kind of shocked, not because Dean had the nerve to dub AFI an emo band in the presence of an elitist and protective front man, but because he had the heart to be snarky at all right now when people were dying. They'd seen people, lots of people, fucking die right in front of them. Jade himself had almost died. And here Dean and Davey were, arguing about the true meaning of emo. Jade had heard Davey fight this particular battle to the death, prattling on about the 90's early emotive phase Oasis and early Jawbreaker pioneered which the little black clad, swoopy haired teenagers didn't even know about, yadda yadda yadda. He knew the shtick. But now? Seriously? 

People had just died. And not just the guy Sam shot in the parking lot, not just the woman Davey shot in the lobby. That whole hotel of people, the pretty receptionist, everyone, all those who paid the same amount of money for the same room as Davey and Jade did, who just were in the wrong place, the wrong time. And Sam and Dean, these fucking circus freaks were just carrying on a conversation like life hadn't just decided it was actually a casting call for the set of fucking 2012. And Davey was joining in. Telling them the true definition of Emo like that shit actually mattered when the world seemed like it was ending.

"Dave..." He started to say, but then he was choking up, face suddenly hot, skin crawling. He was gonna panic, he could feel it coming on. Davey turned to him looking alarmed, hands immediately flying up to cup his cheeks. His eyes were bright with concern but Jade couldn't focus on them. "Dave!" Jade hiccuped again, smacking his knuckles against the window because he couldn't find the thing that rolled the window down on this old fucking car. 

 

"I'm gonna...I need to use the bathroom..." Jade sputtered, totally crying by now, eyes streaming with some kind of effort his body was overwhelmed with. Davey caught on instantly. "Dean, pull over." He said quickly, fingers curled against the back of Jade's sweaty neck, keeping them tight, pushing Jade's head between his own skinny legs. 

"What?! No!" Dean barked incredulously without looking up from the road.   
"He's gonna puke in your car." Davey said matter of factly. That turned Sam and Dean right the fuck around, two pairs of eyes widened, two foreheads wrinkled in disgust. Sam noticed immediately the way Davey's fingers were tangled in the greasy, sick looking back of Jade's hair, protective and dominant. It reminded him of the way he touched Dean. 

"Fuck, if _anything_ , one fucking _drop_ gets on my upholstery, I swear I am not just kicking your asses out on the pavement, I am _skinning you!"_ Dean bellowed, swerving the car off of the road so forcefully Sam was shocked Jade didn't lose it all over the floor of the Impala right there. Luckily Jade made it until the breaks slammed on and he threw the door open, instantly bending out of the car and doubling over, retching and heaving. 

"Jesus." Dean bitched, completely exasperated, slapping his palms down on the steering wheel. 

Davey kept his hands in Jade's hair, brushing it away from his damp, flushed face, looking positively heartbroken over the whole thing. The look painted on the tight, clipped firmness of his lips screamed that he wished he could fix things but didn't know how. Sam recognized the air of concern about him, the way you feel when someone who is more than your brother or friend or lover or band mate or whatever is sick and hurting and you can't do anything about it. Davey was rubbing along Jade's back with his other hand, long white fingers scratching along his spine in long, soothing strokes; he cringed every time Jade spat an acidic mouthful into the grass. 

"Are you done?" Dean said scathingly, distaste smeared across his face like paint. Sam jabbed him. "How many times have we had to stop for you to puke because you were hung-over?"

"That's because I was hung-over, not because I was a pussy and couldn't handle a few potholes in the road." Dean snapped, elbowing Sam back. Jade still couldn't quite get over the fact they were bickering, even with the ringing in his ears and the foul taste of bile in his mouth. The panic was diminishing with the nausea but Jade was still out of his mind, spacey and disconnected from reality. He laid there with his head out the window, savoring the bite of cool air on fevered cheeks, the feel of Davey's careful, smooth hands. Dave fished a half empty bottle of Smart Water out of his Man Purse and offered it to Jade, let him rinse his mouth out. "It wasn't just a few potholes, it was a few murders." Davey said harshly, glaring at Dean in the rearview. 

"Yeah, well, I'm used to that too." Dean grumbled. "Are we ready to leave?" 

"Yeah, yeah." Jade whispered, spitting once more before crawling back into the car and curling into a ball with his head on Davey's thigh. "Ready."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am totally obsessed with the Lost Boys. I can quote the entire thing. It's embarrassing. Anyway, I know for a fact Davey loves that movie, and it seems fitting that Dean would, too. Huh. So I realize that a lot of this is exposition, but it's necessary to set it up this way so the badass hunting shit can come in later.

"Um, where exactly are we headed?" Davey asked when the car started up again, antique engine purring with a catlike hum. He directed the question at Sam, who was all together more approachable, but of course, Dean answered, seeing as he was fuckin' driving and all. 

"California, I thought we told you that." He huffed. 

"Well no shit, but we're not gonna make it to Los Angeles tonight, so where are we headed to in the immediate future?" Davey kept on checking Jade's clammy forehead with the back of his hand, tracing his collarbones and sternum with his fingers. Jade let him, too tired and overwhelmed to push him off or worry about how it might look to the rest of the Impala's occupants. 

"We're not sure yet," Sam said conversationally, glancing at Davey. "When we stop for food in an hour or so, I'll check the local papers and police scanner radios. Hopefully there will be something we can follow in the area, and we'll sort of plot out route to California based on any weird shit happening between here and there." 

He looked at Dean, waiting for him to interject himself into the conversation and start bitching. Dean was fighting the urge as Sam spoke, actually. His natural instinct was to shut Sam the hell up, ask him why on earth he was explaining the details of how they worked their business to some stranger they'd picked up not more than two hours ago. 

First of all, it was against protocol to leak information about their profession to civilians; they never believed them and usually freaked out. Secondly, the ultra casual nature of Sam's explanation was just setting this Chatty Cathy Davey guy up for more nosy questions they would have undoubtedly have to answer if they wanted to shed any light on the situation and make themselves out to be the good guys and not the bad guys. That line between the two, as it was in most real situations, was extraordinarily blurry. There were angels and demons, the devil and maybe even a God, but Sam and Dean were still sort of somewhere on the outskirts of this epic battle, fighting it their own way. He kept his mouth shut with lots of difficulty, waiting to see how Sam dealt with this. 

"Weird happenings? Like the fire storm and electrical shit?"  
"Yes and no..." Sam said, trailing off and looking for Dean for assistance. Dean shrugged at him with a cheeky grin that plainly stated, you got yourself into this one, wonder boy, fish yourself out. 

"Let me start over," Davey sighed, holding his palms up as if so signify clearing a slate. When his hands dropped again, the one naturally adhered itself to Jade's side as if it belonged there, was used to being there. Sam's eyes couldn't stop staring. It wasn't as if their line of work didn't occasionally cause them to run into gay people -Dean even had a couple of lesbian friends he shacked with in Key West for Florida hunts- but most of America was made up of Middle America, and Middle America was largely closeted. Sharing the car with these two questionable guys was a whole new can of worms. Watching their interaction and how similar it was to that between Sam and his brother had him simultaneously perturbed and fascinated as hell. 

"Have you two been friends for a long time?" Sam blurted.   
"Since highschool..." Davey answered, narrowing his eyes in that defensive way people got when someone was treading too close to dangerous territory. 

"Uh, you were starting over?" Sam asked carefully again, trying to appear as if he wasn't assuming anything. His eyes jumped to Dean who was slumped in the drivers seat, ignoring the conversation completely. He wanted nothing to do with explaining their life to two strangers who had absolutely know knowledge of the mess they'd stepped in. His nonchalance spoke volumes to Sam, telling him _you're on your own for this one, kid._

"Yeah. Just...what's happening? Why the storms and locusts?"  
"To be honest?"  
"I want you to honestly tell me," Davey said evenly, reaching out one hand and touching it to the seat in front of him. Davey was one of those people who constantly reached out to touch the person he was talking to, whether it be a gesture of emphasis or camaraderie. Most everyone in his circle of friends was used to it, and the fans practically died for it, so he was more than halfway there with his hand when he realized this guy would probably freak out over it. Hence his fingers stopping to graze the leather upholstery of the Impala instead.

"Well, have you ever read the book of Revelations?" Sam asked gingerly, squinting his eyes and wrinkling his brow. He figured this was the best way to approach the topic of the apocalypse with a normal guy, after all most people were at least sort of familiar with the Bible. Davey looked alarmed, rolling his eyes dramatically. "I hate organized religion."

"But you know Revelations."  
"Who doesn't, Sammy?! Get on with the point," Dean muttered, rolling his eyes in a similar fashion to Davey. Sam internally cringed as he noticed how similar Dean and Davey were in their mannerisms and overall pissy, cantankerous attitudes. Despite the overt rivalry, they sure had a lot in common. 

"Well that's happening," Sam answered earnestly, searching Davey's skeptical face.   
"The Bible is happening. Right." Davey scoffed, rubbing Jade's shoulder. "Hear that? We're fulfilling biblical prophecy." There was no humor in his voice, just the flat, faithless skepticism of someone who'd been fucked over by the church. Sam knew how to recognize it from prior experience, the sound of Catholic school kids long since grown, of people who'd lost their God. Dean, on the other hand, attributed any lack of understanding on Davey's part to his brother's shitty, beating around the bush method of telling anyone anything. But why not beat around the bush when this whole motherfucking ordeal was your fault, right? Yeah, Dean knew a thing or two about faults. 

"What my brother is trying to say, princess, is that the world is ending. Call it what you will, the apocalypse, the end of times, Revelations...basically, we're gonna be toast because there's an epic battle between good and evil and if the right sons of bitches don't get wasted, humanity's going up in flames." Dean said matter of factly, letting his description hang in the air like the smell of gunpowder after a shoot out.

Davey was momentarily silenced, cocking his head like he was physically trying to wrap his mind around what Dean just said. Scary thing was, he wasn't struggling with it because he didn't believe it...no, after their run in with the fire storms and the croats and whatever else, he wasn't one to disbelieve the existence of evil in the world. Davey was struggling with it because of the possible involvement a God he firmly disbelieved in may have in their current situation. 

"So...what role does religion play into this?" Davey asked carefully, tucking the overgrown brown tufts of Jade's hair behind his ear. Jade batted him away, self conscious about revealing the mole on his tragus even in post-puking apocolyptic delirium.   
"Religion? No role so far that we've run into," Sam shrugged, voice cracking bitterly. 

"But you said you were looking for the devil." Davey argued.  
"Well we are, the Devil is sure as hell a player in this whole thing. That's why we're headed to Cali, to blow up the sonofabitch."  
"The Devil's in California..." Jade piped up, voice muffled from where his lips were pressed against Davey's thigh. "That figures." Davey silenced him, stroking his hair and neck gently. Sam's eyes still were fixated. 

"Where are you two from? ," Davey inquired. "I mean, you're not from California because you call it Cali. No one calls it Cali that lives there."

"Who the fuck cares where we're from? Aren't you more concerned with why we're trying to find the devil?" Dean barked, voice rising.   
"Kansas," Sam answered for him. "But we live all over." This was half true. They did live in every state, but out of their car and motel rooms, following where the work cropped up. It had been forever since the they'd actually been back to their hometown of Lawrence. 

"And, really now. Why are you after the Devil? In this so called epic battle, God seems like the slightly friendlier half of the couple..." Jade mumbled disconnectedly, rolling over onto his back and squinting blearily in the fading dusk light. Davey handed him the water bottle, wincing at how pale he looked. 

"God doesn't exist, to the best of our knowledge." Sam admitted.   
"Of course he doesn't!" Davey Queen of the Atheists stated affirmatively. Dean rolled his eyes again. "Yeah, that's what the angels say." 

"The angels?! There are angels?" Davey yelped, seeming horrified. His pretty white hand flew to the necklace fastened at his throat, fist closing around the charm. Dean snickered. "Yep there sure are. You'll be meeting our buddy Cas soon, if you stick around long enough." 

"Angels...angels." Davey mumbled. He looked a little shaken up, like the existence of something biblical was more disturbing than the apocalypse itself. Truth of the matter was that he'd known something was seriously wrong the second he'd woken up with the windows cloaked in locusts. Shit like that just didn't happen in real life, it was the stuff horror movies were made of, and Davey knew it meant business. 

He'd managed to launch into a miraculous, resilient survival mode he didn't know he was capable of, apathetic to the point of functioning seamlessly, able to converse normally despite the dire circumstances. He figured this would crash eventually like a bad caffeine high, and he’s be a blubbering mess soon. Jade on the other hand, who was usually the more logical, level headed one of the pair, was falling apart like a cake left out in the rain. Perhaps it was his logical nature that was causing him to struggle to desperately, the fact his already existing schemas couldn't modify to accept the possibility of the apocalypse and the devil. And angels, goddamnit. Angels. 

"Hey, Darby, what's that shit you got hanging around your neck?" Dean snapped. It took Davey a second to realize it was him that was being addressed. He was jerked out of his reverie, hand still firm on the charm. 

"It's Davey" He answered, holding the upside down crucifix to show Sam and Dean. Sam's eyes twinkled in mirth, widening hazel, lips barely covering hushed laughter. Dean, on the other hand fucking exploded, slapping his thighs, white teeth and green eyes flashing. "You've gotta be fucking kidding me..." he wheezed, shoulders shaking. "Where the hell did you get that little dime store piece of crap? Do you even know what that shit means?" 

"It's Zu Boutique! It's sterling silver!" Davey bitched, bristling. He tucked the inverted cross back into the collar of his shirt, huffing. 

"Are you some kind of satanist? Is that why you're following us to Cali?" Dean sputtered, elbowing Sam who was laughing freely now too, tears threatening to stream down their cheeks. Dean was even holding his stomach, which ached with amusement. Jesus Christ, as least this kid was good for a laugh. 

"It's not satanic, it's merely antichristian. Satanism is for posers like Alkaline Trio." Davey snapped, fingering the sterling silver Zu Boutique necklace affectionately. He made this speech differentiating antichristian and satanist symbols and values regularly, but never to people so entertained by the whole thing. Davey was floundering, looking to Jade for help who in spite of his catatonia, was also almost laughing. Seriously, what a stab in the back. 

"Do you two have some sort of authority on antichristian idolatry or something?" Davey snapped, crossing his arms.   
"Well yeah, that's what I was getting into..." Sam wheezed in between laughs. His eyes were locked on Dean, hysterical not just because some punk ass boy from Hollywood was wearing an inverted crucifix for kicks, but because he was high off of the fact he and Dean were actually laughing together about something, unified in mirth. Just like old times. 

Sam wiped his eyes, loving the genuine amusement shining back at him from Dean, Dean's lazy mouth, smile like a dog's smile, open and happy and slow. It was moments like these when he thought they might be able to restore what they had, before Dean died, before Sam fucked everything up. 

"So, yeah, uh Dean and I. My brother and I hunt demons." Sam finally choked out, clutching the sore muscles in his stomach.   
"Demons are real?" Jade mumbled, looking up at Davey with big, nervous eyes.   
"Yup, real as you and me. And not just demons, but ghosts, werewolves, vampires, you name it," Dean said, scanning the rearview mirror to gauge their reaction. 

"Vampires?! I knew it." Davey said triumphantly, squeezing Jade's shoulder. Sam and Dean were pretty shocked with how this guy was holding up in the face of reality as he previously knew it being shaken. He seemed almost fuckin' excited about the vampires. Jade noticed this, thinking once again that maybe Davey's hair hadn't been dyed black in years, and he'd long since retired the PVC pants and fishnet shirts, but you could never take the Goth out of the Goth kid. 

"What else is real?" Davey asked, narrowing his eyes, fiddling anxiously with the sleeve of Jade's shirt.   
"Like I said, you name it, we've either seen it or put a stake in its heart." Dean said. He used to declare these truths with a hint of arrogance and pride in his voice, but Sam knew that aspect of their work was gone now. They were both wanted the hell out, having lost everything to the fight, burnt and beat into shells of the young men they once were. Tired, literally going to hell and back for the sake of their job. 

"Unicorns?" Jade asked, dead pan. Dean stared with his mouth hanging open, swerving the Impala a little as a result.   
"No. No unicorns, you queer." Dean barked, semi-appalled. 

"I wish," Sam huffed, glancing down at his arms, bearing years and years worth of burns and scars given to him by a myriad of monsters: black dogs, chupacabras, poltergeists, chimeras, hundreds of other sons of bitches. A unicorn would have been a nice break from all the claws and teeth. 

"Yeah, you would wish. You're a queer too." His brother scoffed, flicking Sam on the ear with a still blood speckled thumb and gun finger. Sam shoved him in retaliation. 

“Wait, so what happened back at the hotel? What did you kill...did I kill...there?” Davey’s voice got a hushed tone at the end, incredulous and filled with awe like he didn’t actually believe he’d murdered something. He wanted to look down to Jade, to gauge his reaction, but found himself afraid of what Jade would think. Davey was a through and through pacifist, and he felt a desperate need to explain and justify his actions to Jade. Now was not the time, however. 

“That was a Croat, short for Croatoan. Like the lost colony,” Sam interjected. “We never actually figured this one out, but there was an outbreak in River Grove awhile ago we ran into. From what we’ve gathered, it’s a Demon virus that turns normal people crazy.” Sam explained, but Dean shook his head. 

“Imagine The Thing. Like the 80s movie. Demon style.” Dean was good at making this information accessible for normal people, because he had a hefty load of experience under his belt concerning horror movies. This always explained things a little better than Sam’s Lost Colony bullshit. 

“Wow.” Davey answered solemnly, nodding to himself.  
“Don’t feel bad about killing it, it was gonna kill you first, you just had a faster trigger finger,” Sam said in attempts at being reassuring, but Davey’s stomach felt wrenched out of his body cavity at the mention and his eyes burned from not looking at Jade, so he casually changed the subject. 

"How on earth did you get into the paranormal investigation business?" Davey asked, thoroughly perplexed. "Hell, I might not be in a band if I knew this shit existed when I was a kid. I might have stayed in school." 

"Okay, first off, it's not 'paranormal investigation,' that sounds like a TLC show or something. We're hunters," Dean said authoritatively, setting everyone straight on the matter. "Got it? We don't go into haunted houses with a bunch of fancy equipment and scream a lot for shock value. We carry shotguns. We kill things."

"And you're much better off in a band. This job? It sucks." Sam added.  
"But what about the honor? I mean you guys are fighting for humanity. For truth, justice, and the American Way." Davey said smugly, saluting Sam. 

"He doesn't care about humanity or the American Way," Jade interjected, finally deeming himself fit to sit upright, heaving his shaky body into a slouch next to Davey. "He just wanted to quote The Lost Boys." 

Dean rolled his eyes, fighting an internal battle. Seeing as he hated Davey and everything, right down to the cheerful pink on his nails and the faux leather of this shoes, he couldn't exactly chime in when the legendary Frog Brothers slogan came into play, no matter how much he adored old school cheesy horror movies. Resisting the urge made him actually think about it, about what Edgar and Allan Frog's true mission in Vampire Wasting was. Truth, Justice, the American Way. 

Was that Sam and Dean Winchester's mission, too? Did he give a fuck about truth? Nah, Dean was an award winning artist in deceit. He had a bucket full of fake IDs in the Impala to prove it. And justice? Maybe when they started out on this gig that was their aim, but things got so fucked up over the course of all those years, all those deals with the devil. Not even Dean, who was superb at bullshitting, could convince anyone much less himself that he and Sammy were doing this for justice anymore. And the American Way?! What the hell did that even mean? There was no so called "honor" left in hunting for either of them. Dean didn't kill demons for truth, justice, or the American Way. Maybe he believed that a long time ago, but hunting became about his brother, and after Hell and back? Well, who the fuck knew what it was about anymore. 

"You don't want this job," He finally decided on, staring at Sam instead of Davey, icy green eyes locked in on his brother's tired face. "There's not an ounce of honor left, trust me." 

Davey shut his trap for once, instead busying himself with making sure Jade, who was still as wan and sick looking as a patient who had just given a shitload of blood, wasn't about to vomit again. Sam kept looking at his brother, trying to gauge and read that steely expression etched into his handsome features. 

He couldn't tell if Dean was accusing him of losing honor in the hunt (definitely a possibility, seeing as Sam did divert a hell of a lot away from Truth, Justice, and the American Way over the past year or so, with the blood and Ruby and whatnot) or if Dean was confessing something, admitting that he and Sam were still in solidarity together, dirty cops, criminals, hunters. Sam didn't know, so he squirmed underneath his brother's heavy gaze, wishing he still had the power to read Dean like a motherfuckin' book, all open and exposed and _his._ He finally had to look away, averting his attention back to explaining what in the hell they did with their lives to their new road trip buddies. 

"So when I said strange happenings, I didn't just mean stuff pertaining to the apocalypse." 

"I get it now, strange happenings are your business. You'll be following all sorts of supernatural occurrences, I take it." Davey said, trying not to sound too excited about the prospect of meeting a ghost or something. He thought of the countless times he had played with an Ouija board at parties. And not sleepover parties when he was in middle school, no, parties held at Jeffree Star's house two years ago. Parties Davey attended when he was in his early thirties, sitting in a circle of similarly tattooed, male counterparts in their silk Calvin Klein PJ bottoms with candles lit and flickering all across Jeffree's pepto bismol pink walls. 

You couldn't shake the Goth out of the Goth kid, even if you tried. 

"Bingo," Sam answered. "We'll be hunting all the way too Los Angeles."

"And what will we be doing to help in the mean time?" Davey asked breathlessly, already imagining himself standing in the center of a pentagram summoning spirits while wearing a fabulously sequined black floor length cape he once saw at a boutique at Melrose. He wanted to buy it but hadn't because it was impractical purchase. Under what circumstances would Davey ever wear a cape? Hunting! This was obviously his life calling. 

"What do you mean?" Sam asked, wrinkling his forehead. 

"What will Jade and I do to help?" He was five seconds away from clapping his hands together and squealing. 

"STAY IN THE HOTEL!!" Dean and Jade and Sam all screamed in exasperation, eyes zeroing in on Davey accusatorily, who cowered slightly in response. Goddamnit. So much for utilizing that sequined cape.


	6. Chapter 6

Another hour or so passed on the road before everyone was utterly starving, stomachs growling and legs shaking. Usually, Dean was the first to start bitching about food, demanding they stop at the next joint they saw and order half the menu because he was so hungry he could eat a horse. However, this time the Impala's contents and dynamic were slightly different, and Davey Havok was the first one to pipe up from the backseat. 

"I'm sorry, but my stomach is eating itself." Davey declared, arms crossed upon his chest. He looked absolutely homicidal. Though Jade hadn't actually said anything, he was in pretty much the same boat, feeling increasingly weak with each mile marker they passed on the tree-framed highway, just too shell shocked and intimidated by all the apocalypse talk to say anything. And by the looks of it, Sam and Dean could use a burger or three or ten, too. Everyone had been thinking it, Davey just had the nerve to blurt it. 

"I'm keeping my eye out for a diner," Dean growled. "Bingo!" He added when a sign for the upcoming off ramp promised food, lodging, and gas. He flicked his turn signal on, swerving off the road. 

"McDonalds sound good? We can just get a bunch of happy meals to go, get back on the road," Sam offered, kicking his feet up on the dashboard.   
"No!" Davey and Jade chorused, exchanging horrified looks, mouths hanging open. 

"What?! You celebrities want some fancy sit down joint?" Dean's voice rose, eyes rolling skyward in exasperation. 

"I'm a vegetarian. And Dave...Dave's a vegan." Jade said like it made perfect sense. Dean almost didn't hear him, he was too busy smacking Sam's legs so he'd be halfway courteous and take his goddamn feet off the dash. Dean didn't care that the guy was well over six feet he had to be cramped up in the front seat for hours at a time. The Imapla didn't want his dirty ass boots all up in her grill. 

"Wait, what the hell's a vegan?" Dean asked, registering.   
"Vegetarian on steroids," Sam said quickly, trying to cut off the epic monologue he knew Davey was about to launch into. Going to an expensive private university in California, no matter how briefly, exposed Sam to his fair share of pesca-vege-raw food-homeopathic-homo-whatever the fucks and their weird dietary guidelines. He was aware of enough variations on the same theme to know veganism was at one end of the preaching, health nut spectrum. His attempt to silence the propaganda failed, however, and Davey was halfway into explaining how cruel the treatment of cows at dairy farms was when Dean flipped a bitch.   
r32;"Jesus Christ on a cracker, Donnie, if you don't eat meat...well that's one thing. That means you're a pussy," Dean started.   
"Hey!" Interjected Jade, but no one listened.  
"But if you don't eat _cheese..._ goddamnit that means you don't fuckin' eat anything! You don't have a soul! You've eliminated two ingredients of cheese burgers and by eliminating cheese burgers you've eliminated an entire food group! OUT OF MY CAR." Dean roared.

"Well _I_ don't think of it that way," Davey said huffily, stopping his tirade because Jade had placed a warning hand in his thigh, tightening in that _they'll never understand. just let it go_ way. Davey's jaw shut with a snap, shoulders sagging. He should have known these guys were carnivorous in the same religious, dedicated way he wasn't. Seriously, they had a bunch of sawed off shot guns in the trunk of a hot rod. That went hand in hand with steak, davey guessed.

"It's gonna be tough to survive on the road with us with such a limited diet..." Sam warned.   
"Well, they have those walnut and apple salads at McDonalds. Just order yourself five. Have a nice salad," Dean bitched. "We're not gonna go anywhere special for you just because you're on some save the cows mission." 

"I can't live on salad for an entire cross country road trip!" Davey said frantically, grasping Jade's arm.   
"Dave you'll manage, you always do. It'll be fine." 

"Yeah, princess lighten up. Can't you just make an exception for this one little car ride? Just you know, split a cheese pizza with your boyfriend for once? I'm sure those cows will understand about the apocalypse." Dean scoffed, already pulling into the McDonalds parking lot amongst the likes of truckers and fat Midwestern tourists. 

"It's not _just_ about the cows, asshole. If I try and eat dairy after ten years without any cholesterol in my body, I'll get _ill._ " Davey protested.   
"Dean, there's a Friendly's right there. They might have more options." Sam said, trying to be accommodating. 

"Suck it up, stomach aches are not all that bad!" Dean was full blown whining like a toddler now, making a big dramatic show of his over eager U turn, which sent Davey and Jade colliding into each other in the back seat. 

"Not just a stomach ache, exactly..." Davey started, but Jade cut him off.  
"I'll be completely blunt here, there will be hours of explosive diarrhea and projectile vomiting if Dave consumes any amount of dairy." Jade assured everyone, thinking of the time Davey mistook some cheese dip for hummus and spat everything out in horror onto the restaurant table and everyone else's food without a second thought. Or the time Davey ate a considerable amount of this dish someone made and promised was vegan, but definitely had some milk or eggs or something in it, because Jade distinctly recalled staying up all night holding Davey's then long, black tresses out of his face while he hugged the toilet bowl for hours. 

In short, the tumultuous, hateful relationship between Davey and Dairy was the last thing anyone wanted to deal with when the world was going up in flames. It was best everyone just catered to his diet. No one would get hurt that way. Friendly's it was. 

It later turned out after some intense menu dissecting, there was still nothing Davey could eat. This resulted in Sam and Dean fuming away at the table while Davey and Jade connected to the internet on their sidekicks and googled vegan eateries in the area. Then it was a fifteen minute drive off route to some expensive as shit place. "This cannot be a regular occurrence if you're traveling with us!" Sam bitched, feeling very stupid as he set his police radio up on the fancy vegan table at the fancy vegan restaurant, ignoring the snooty looks from the snooty New York vegans. 

Davey was smirking, enjoying the hell out of his seitan and vegetable stir fry. Meanwhile, thrilled to tears with the sudden reception his sidekick was getting, Jade called his entire list of contacts in the bathroom, assuring everyone that yes, they were alive, and no, they hadn't rented a car, they were bumming a ride from when he referred to to as "a couple of nice guys heading in the same direction." He chose to omit the entire end of times, fascist feds turned paranormal investigators explanation to save time and concern. 

When Jade returned to the table, he looked five years older, sagging into the faux-leather booth with an exhausted squeak of aching bones.   
“You get a hold of everyone?” Davey asked gently, pausing his rapid food consumption to regard Jade with concern. Jade nodded, staring at his mostly full plate with a combination of awe and disgust. He wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to eat, with the world ending and all. 

“And?” Davey was tapping his fork anxiously at the edge of his plate, head cocked. Jade wanted to reach across the table and bury himself in Davey’s chest, dig his teeth into the safe, soft skin of his shoulder. There was a this place on Davey’s shoulder where the skin was attached more loosely than his throat, and Jade discovered years ago that no matter how hard he dug his teeth into him there, it didn’t hurt. It left a bruise, two half circles of nasty looking teeth marks, but Davey would only wince for a half second, and then let Jade bite him as hard as he needed too. Jade would sob into that tender junction, letting out all his tension and nerves and fear into Davey’s body, allowing him to absorb all the stress that built in his jaw. 

Unfortunately for Jade, they were in public right now, not to mention he didn’t exactly trust himself to keep it all together if he touched Davey. Talking to his brother and friends made the reality of the situation hit him like a truck and plow him into the pavement so he was spitting dirt. His stomach sank deep into him, leaving his limbs numb, his hunger evaporated. Jade was glad there wasn’t a mirror anywhere in sight, because he didn’t really want to see how pale he looked. 

“Jade?” Davey asked again, brows raised.   
“Everyone’s fine. Smith’s home. Adam’s with Kelly. Hunter and Fritch are driving to Ukiah tomorrow to stay at my parent’s place, kind of keep everyone together.” He said mechanically, rubbing his palms together and staring at the table. He was pretty sure Davey could tell he was freaking out, but their company sort of prevented anything he could do to calm him down. 

“Okay. So everyone’s safe,” Davey said gently. “You wanna get a box to take that back to the motel?” He gestured to Jade’s relatively untouched meal. Jade nodded, eyes still fixed on the tabletop, on the salt that Dean had deliberately scattered there from the shaker, which he was now trying to balance in the tiny granules, brow furrowed in concentration. Jade didn’t say yes or no but Davey was calling a waiter over anyway. 

Jade was antsy. He wanted to leave. He couldn’t quite place it, but he thought the horrible, perturbed feeling in his gut might have been because of this restaurant and it’s mundane, normal clatter of plates. The din of so many ignorant, unconcerned people chatting and laughing and eating their seitan rubbed Jade the wrong way and made the tiny hairs on his arms prickle into gooseflesh. None of these people knew what was happening, what a Croat was, or that the Apocalypse was coming their way. That Jade’s oldest friend and sometimes lover had shot someone no less than four hours ago, and was now sitting amongst them, forking vegetables into his mouth like nothing had happened. 

“Is Darby finished?” Dean said loudly, flicking his little pile of salt grains in Jade’s general direction. Sam was sitting across from him, looking awkwardly huge while piled into the tiny, vegan-sized booth, bent over a news paper he was highlighting random obituaries in, circling some in red and crossing out others. Every few minutes he’d put his ear next to the police radio, pained expression on his face while he tried to distinguish the reports. Then it was back to scribbling on the newspaper, of thumbing through a well worn journal full of clippings and sketches. 

“Darby is quite finished, thank you,” Davey said coldly, thumbing some cash out of his hideous pink pleather wallet for the bill. He had given up on trying to convince Dean that his name was not actually Darby. Relief washed over Jade as they all filed out of the restaurant; he was more than looking forward to taking an hour long shower and curling into a motel bed next to Davey. He trailed farthest behind the group, half listening to Dean blather loudly to Sam about something. 

“So if we’re gonna keep feeding Captain Vegan here,” He started, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at Davey, “We’re not gonna be able to find a vegawhatever restaurant in every goddamn shitkicking town we end up in. So I guess he’ll have to starve. Shame.” Dean smirked, looking to the clear sky wistfully. 

“You know...” Sam mumbled, still rifling through the journal, “He’s right behind you. You can talk to him about it instead of yelling to me so he’ll overhear.” 

“Captain Vegan!” Dean said the second they were all in the car, doors slammed and seat belts fastened, but Davey was already on his case.   
“I got it, you don’t want to feed me. As much as I dislike you,” Davey snapped placing extra emphasis on the “i” in dislike, “You’re doing us a favor, and I don’t want to be too much of a pain in the ass. So before we get back on the road seriously, just stop off at a Whole Foods. I’ll buy a bunch of canned lentils and live off those for the rest of the trip.” Davey huffed. 

“Don’t worry about being a pain in the ass, you’ve already been there, done that, Pretty Boy. See now I gotta find a goddamn Whole Foods. Or, Whole Paycheck, as Sammy and I like to call them.” Dean said this with venom, but Sam could tell he was relieved they wouldn’t be eating at expensive Vegan diners for as long as they were schlepping their new cargo. 

~*~

When they finally got two rooms at a motel, Davey and Jade could hardly stand from exhaustion. Jade nodded off a few times in the car, a skill Davey had always been incapable of, but aside from that it had been endless hours of land passing under the Impala’s wheels. Hours of silence punctuated by occasional arguments from the front seat over which highlighted newspaper story or police report sounded most promising, and of course, a constant rattling drone of Whitesnake singles coming from the radio. 

Davey could have cried when they finally got a room to stumble to, a room he could charge his ipod in and hopefully get “Is This Love” out of his head. He desperately wanted to sleep, but even in times of desperation sleep never came easily to Davey, and watching Jade’s narrow chest rise and fall to the beat or something that wasn’t Whitesnake might be as close to rest as he got. 

Sam and Dean on the other hand were wide awake. Sam was eager to get Davey and Jade out of his hair so he could actually talk business with his brother, sick of guarding his speech. No matter how excited that Davey guy seemed about the prospect of Real Live Ghost Hunting, the reality was that the guy was just a spectator, some rich kid tourist fascinated with the macabre but otherwise watching it from a glass case. He got to quote vampire movies and wear capes, but after that he locked his door at night and never actually drew blood or fired a round of rocksalt. He was just a man, and a celebrity at that. Sam doubted he was capable of handling the severity of a bad tabloid, let alone candid apocalyptic talk. 

Once Davey and Jade were locked in their room, Sam and Dean in theirs, Sam collapsed on one of the tired looking motel beds with an exhausted creak of bedsprings. Dean was back to being surly, heaving his duffel bag of mostly dirty clothes onto his own bed, raking a hand through messy and slightly overgrown hair. Sam watched him with a mild, sad twinge in his solar plexus, watched his arms flex as he shucked off his flannels, the undershirt ride up without revealing skin. He closed his eyes, not wanting to look anymore. “Dean?” he mumbled, voice thin and wilted under the weight of his own arm. 

“What?”   
“You need a haircut,” Sam sighed, coughing a little with the force of air from his exhausted lungs, feeling like a deflated balloon trapped under a rock. He was met with a silence, and even though his eyes were closed he could see Dean’s expression, the knit brows and chapped lips parted in slight incredulity. Then Dean laughed. It was a choked and tired, but a laugh nonetheless. Sam smiled against his arm. 

“Yeah, I guess I do,” Dean said thoughtfully, and then Sam felt his brother’s weight make the foot of his own bed dip down, the mattress whining in protest, high and long like a dog begging for scraps.   
“So,” Dean added, voice gruff. “How the hell did we end up with those two fairies in our car, and please tell me this is only a temporary engagement?” 

Sam hauled himself up into a sitting position, bending at the waist to untie the mud-crusted laces of his boot, which he toed off with some difficulty. “Well they’re with us because they needed a ride.” He said plainly. “And you know, they saved my ass, but...”

“Yeah, yeah I don’t need you guilt tripping me anymore for freezing up back there, I got it,” Dean huffed, cracking his neck. Sam’s gaze flitted to the side, looking through his hair at Dean’s troubled expression. Even if he didn’t wear it on his sleeve, the guy hated letting Sam down, no matter how far into the doghouse Sam was. And just for the record, his position was currently very, very far. 

“Really though man, so what if they needed a ride? That’s not our job, Sammy. We can’t start making friends with the folks whose asses we save. They’ll start getting attached and shit,” Dean urged, following Sam’s example and kicking his boots off. They clunked noisily to the thin, pathetic carpet, loud enough to make Sam’s aching head twinge. The motel was a shithole, like every other place they stayed in. Sam was sure that when they turned down the beds, there would be cigarette burns in the sheets, stains like continents on a map. 

“Since when is helping people not our job?” Sam shot back, concerned line through his forehead. Dean regarded him for a moment, eyes sad. He was too tired to fight tonight, too worn out to tell Sam all the reasons why this wasn’t their job. Because the world was ending. Because Dean didn’t trust outsiders anymore, not after Ruby. Hell, Dean didn’t even fucking trust Sam anymore after Ruby, why the hell should Sam’s opinion count for shit after that? 

But If he said anything, his words would be so run through with bitterness Sam would slice his throat open in the knife edge, and Dean was too tired for that, too tired to clean up the mess, all the blood off those already stained sheets. He dropped his eyes to the moth-eaten duvet cover, shaking his head. He didn’t respond. 

“Come on, man.” Sam begged, his voice gentler this time. He was pressing, pushing, this idiot rooting his way into things like he always did. Dean kept his eyes fixed on the bedspread, the grey-green and mauve floral pattern that would make a colorblind grandma cringe. If he looked up he might lose his resolve, he might push past his exhaustion and pick a fight. It was hard to keep his shit together around Sam lately, betrayal ruined a guy’s composure like that. “I don’t want to fight,” he managed to grind out, thinking of all the things he’d lost since this operation went to hell. Literally. 

“Dean,” Sam’s voice was almost a whisper. “You know how this feels.”  
“How what feels?” Dean asked, and he felt his voice threaten to rise, the fight just around the bend, itching in his fingers to close around a fist. He hated that word, “feel.” Sam goddamn loved it, the pussy. 

“When you’ve fucked up,” Sam said, shifting his weight next to Dean on the bed. It was a minor movement but it spooked Dean all the same, making him flinch away from his brother. 

“I’ve fucked up, and I’ve hurt a lot of people, and the least I can do is help a few in return, you know?” Sam tumbled out in a rush, wringing his huge hands together, reduced to his shame which burnt Dean’s eyes to think about. “And don’t give me any self righteous bullshit, Dean, you’ve been there. You’ve felt that.” 

There it was again, feel, felt. Sam’s voice was earnest but Dean didn’t care at that point. He wrenched himself up off the bed, skin crawling, muscles in his neck taut and twitching. “Sam, I went to motherfucking _hell_ for you” his voice was dangerously low and raw, eyes finally meeting Sam’s now. Sam’s jaw snapped shut, a sorry creeping to his lips but Dean beat him to home plate. “And you fucked a demon bitch and became an addict. Now tell me you know how I _feel_ again.” His teeth ground together, an oncoming storm making his throat swell and clench. He wanted to hate his baby brother for leaving him, but all he managed was hating himself for selling his soul, for getting pulled from the dirt, for being stupid enough to be left. 

“Now I told you, I don’t want to fight. So I think you should shut your trap on this one and your guilty hero complex for a half second and show me what you found in the papers today, and get us started on a new case.” Dean’s voice was quaking but he tried to keep his temper limited to color in his cheeks and a vein pulsing in his temple. Sam’s mouth opened like he wanted to say something, eyes darkening for a moment before he thought better of it. He swallowed, started anew.

“There’s been three deaths near Hazleton, Pennsylvania within the same month. All teenage boys, all local heros...football stars and the like. There was a huge article in the paper, and so far cause of death has been unknown on all three cases...” Sam trailed off, grabbing his laptop bag to rifle through, but Dean was satisfied, clapping his hands together with a note of finality. Sam noticed there was still a ring of dried blood around his brother’s nails, a reminder of just another day. Just another murder, or another job well done. It depended on how you looked at it. 

“Hazleton it is, then. That’s below Scranton. We can get there by tomorrow.” He said curtly, tugging off his shirt without looking at Sam, kicking the door to the bathroom open. “I’m showering.” And without another word Sam was left on the bed, open laptop case strew across the cigarette burn sheets, so deep in the doghouse there was nothing to do. Nothing to do but research, hash out a few theories for the investigation, google a map to Pennsylvania, and hope Dean would look at him tomorrow. 

~*~

As ruined by the day’s events as Davey was, he couldn’t make himself fall asleep that night. Upon arriving at their hotel room Jade had brushed his teeth, shucked off his jeans and teeshirt, and fallen asleep on top of the sheets with his contact lenses in, no shirt, and boxers. For someone with as lengthy a get-to-bed ritual as Jade, Davey found his insta-comatose state slightly perturbing.

He resigned himself to taking an obscenely long shower by himself, sitting on its floor and for once not worrying himself sick over all the water he was wasting. He watched droplets collect and pool in his open palms, chasing each other along the creases of his hands while the dull clatter of weak pressure deafened him. Davey was shocked at how blank he was able to keep his mind, the alarmingly utilitarian manner in which he wasn’t freaking out or crying over nearly seeing Jade die, not to mention killing the thing that almost did it. It seemed like the kind of thing he should be having a full scale melt down over, but here he was instead, sitting on the mildewed grimy shower floor staring at the motel-provided toiletries he couldn’t use because they weren’t vegan. 

He hummed Jawbreaker’s Sluttering because whenever he thought “waste of water” he thought “waist of laughter.” And whenever he thought of Sluttering he thought of Jade, because the last few lines of the song seemed to summarize the way Davey felt about him not particularly long ago. Davey pushed that aside though, because he wasn’t angry at him now and didn’t want to be. In fact, he was worried about him, worried that he’d gotten sick earlier that day, that he was panicking.

Because Davey was supposedly the diva of the pair, (although that was arguable depending upon who you asked, ) he always assumed that in a situation of real turmoil, Jade would be the one holding it together. Davey was the one prone to manic laughter, to sobbing fits, to panic attacks, (although Jade had a few of those under his belt, too.) On the contrary, the apocalypse was supposedly just over the horizon and Jade was the one fraying at the seams, coming apart like a an old, well loved stuffed animal who took too many spins around in the dryer. No matter how effectively Sluttering applied to Davey’s feelings concerning Jade some of the time, most of the time he just wanted to patch him up. Take a needle and thread and pull the thinning scraps of fabric together, not caring how fucked up and stitched the thing was. 

Tonight was one of those nights. Davey dried off, cringing as the scrappy white towel touched his skin, not quite believing it was clean. He was faintly aware of the tight, collapsed feeling of something crushed in his chest but ignored it, trading concern for his own well being for that of Jade’s. Every once and awhile a pang of terror and sickness would vault though his body like he was struck with lightening, every time he though of the way the gun felt so fucking heavy but so easy and natural in his hands. How he pulled the trigger without thinking. Then Davey would swallow it, push it down as far as possible and think of Jade instead. 

Padding quietly into the bedroom Davey found Jade, curled tight and defensive like a ball of foil. He sighed, flicking the bedside lamp off and crawling in next to his long time friend, prying him apart with gentle, searching fingers. Jade huffed in his sleep, exhaustion lined face turning to snuffle wordless pleas into the flat hotel pillow. 

Suddenly blind in the dark, Davey bumped his nose against Jade’s body, letting his lips whisper quietly across the gentle curve of his shoulder, the outlines of slack muscles and tendons, twitching occasionally in sleep. Davey didn’t say anything, just let his mouth touch Jade, the nape of his neck where the skin gave way to silky hair, the top-most knob of his spine, the barely-stubble rough line of his jaw. Jade murmured once, fumbling his clumsy hand backwards until it came to rest heavy and hot on Davey’s hip. They sighed in tandem, Jade’s back against Davey’s chest. 

“Are you scared?” Jade said thickly, and Davey almost missed it. 

“Of what?” He whispered, placing his mouth directly against the curved shell of Jade’s ear, proving he was right here, only centimeters away. The silence yawned ahead of him, endless like the stale darkness in the hotel room. He imagined Jade’s troubled look, his sleepy, half lidded eyes and slow tongue trying to pick the right words. 

“Of...I dunnoDave...” Jade slurred, his throat sounding wet. He coughed, the jolt of it wracking solidly thorough Davey. “Of the apocalypse.” 

Davey thought for a moment, his hand sliding smoothly up Jade’s side, which was warm with the prospect of sleep just ahead of this conversation. Davey on the other hand was cool from the shower and awake as all hell, preparing to lay next to Jade fighting off his bad dreams for him until the sun rose if that was all he was capable of. The unwanted image of Jade’s body trapped beneath the croat flashed into Davey’s head and be banished it immediately, ignoring the feel of ice sliding down his neck, making him shiver. He thought about the apocalypse, of angels and demons and a God he’d given up on a long time ago. 

 

“There are worse things to be scared of.” Davey decided, fingers coming to rest on the harsh angle of Jade’s wrist, tightening there protectively. 

“Like what.” Jade whispered, voice muffled. He settled backwards against Davey, trying to press their frames closer, like they might interlock he he kept shifting against him trying to find the perfect fit. 

“Like losing you,” Davey said honestly, his voice a strange sort of vulnerable. Thin and small, like all things he managed to vocalize about this. They didn’t talk about it often, not since Jade came back. The hush that fell afterwards was comfortable, because Jade had nothing to say to that but, “That’s not gonna happen again.” And because Davey was tired, but unable to sleep, sore, and officially a murderer, he believed him.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What the hell was I thinking when I wrote this, I don't know. Ugh. I hope someone is glad I'm putting this up here.

The next morning Dean awoke with a start, tangled sticky and frantic in his sheets. Bad dreams, always bad dreams. After going to hell, it was kind of a lost cause to assume one could ever sleep soundly again, but it still got him every time, that sick thundering of a his heart trying to escape from his throat. He stared wide eyed as the motel ceiling materialized around him, nicotine stained and run through with spidery cracks. He swallowed harshly, mouth dry and sour as the last fierce, scarlet images faded from his head. Dean’s hell nightmares were less of a solid thing and more of a remnant feeling, a hopelessness that he could never really shake free from his bones, that constant thousand pound knowledge that he’d never see his brother again. “Goddammnit...” Dean mumbled, rubbing a sweaty palm across his face. 

“Morning,” Sam said from the shitty little circular table, unconcerned and without looking up. He knew better than to ask about the nightmares. After all Dean would have preferred Sam to think he didn’t remember a second of his time spent in the pit, because thinking of Dean Hurt pained Sam, and thinking of Sam Hurt pained Dean. He guessed that was one of the infinite downsides of codependency. It felt like he was constantly discovering these, tacking each new realization to a lengthy list of times he’d almost gotten himself killed. At the top of that list was the one time he did get himself killed, but Dean’s dreams reminded him enough of that, so he’d rather not dwell of it in waking hours.

“Morning,” he said groggily, rolling heavily onto his side to look at Sam, too big for the cheap, poorly upholstered chair he was bunched uncomfortably into, looking like an adult sitting at a child’s school desk, typing furiously at the laptop. 

“Whatcha got? You better be planning our day, Cause I sure as hell...”Dean trailed off, clearing his throat as Sam’s gaze snapped up to hold his own, a triumphant little glare brightening his eyes. 

“I already think I know what’s going on, but we should go talk to some coaches and students at the school, just to make sure. I’m pretty sure it’s a good old fashioned vengeful spirit though...” Sam grabbed some messy scrawled notes, holding them up for Dean to squint at, like he could actually decipher that shit from across the room. 

“Well you put yourself to good use this morning,” Dean scoffed, collapsing onto his back and blearily regarding the ceiling cracks again. He remembered a shitty back house they rented the summer Dean was eleven. The ceiling directly over the bed he and Sam shared was a mess of water damage and cracks, and he recalled laying side by side with his then baby brother, pointing out pictures he saw in the shapes, maps to distant lands. Sam had been enraptured, agreeing with sleepy-head nods when Dean pointed out a new character among the stains. Like all memories that didn’t involve blood, fire, or loneliness, it made Dean feel a pang of longing. He shut his eyes. 

“So, have you talked to the rockstars yet?” Dean asked, hoping Sam had come to his senses and kicked them out of the caravan once and for all.   
“Nope, they’re probably still sleeping,” Sam said, eyes still scanning the screen, brow furrowed grumpily. 

“Are you still hellbent on letting them hitch a ride with us?” Dean grumbled.   
“Dean, I really don’t want to hear any more of it. They’re paying for their own food, and they’re probably insanely rich. Think of all the gas they’ll buy for us. We’re already going to California, and that’s where they need to be. Will you quit being uptight about it and just give it a rest?” Sam said, his argument infuriatingly practical. Dean really didn’t have a convincing counter attack to the gas thing. It was a constant stress on his life to deal with the car, and even though she was the second great love his life, she didn’t exactly have the best track record with miles to the gallon. He thought of all the whiskey he could buy with the gas money. 

“Okay,” He finally said, gruff and quiet but agreeing none the less. Sam actually looked at him then, cocking his head and chewing the edge of his lip like he expected more of a fight than that.   
“Alright then. It’s settled,” Sam sighed, tearing off the corner of a journal page to scrawl them a note he’d tack to the door. It read

“Heading to PA for a case, three high school murders. Cell phone numbers on flip side. Might not be back tonight.”

\-- Sam

~*~

The trip from Newburgh, New York to the tiny borough of West Hazleton was estimated to take just over two hours, a long enough drive for Sam to hash his theories out to Dean a few times over. They stopped off at a Dunkin’ Doughnuts upon departure, Dean emptying a cavity inducing number of sugar packets and half and half into his drink, while Sam regarded him with mild disgust over the rim of his own black coffee. 

“You’re going to die of a heart attack,” Sam mumbled, fastening his seat belt clumsily. Even after years and years of this being his rightful place in things, he still felt like he didn’t actually physically fit into the shotgun of the Impala. 

“Oh Sammy, I’ve already died once, it wasn’t so bad. And if I haven’t been killed yet by all the shit we piss off, then I can take a little sugar, right?” He waggled his eyebrows in Sam’s direction. It seemed strange how they were bantering as usual, especially considering the miles and miles worth of dark undercurrent that surged just beneath the surface, water under a poorly constructed bridge. Dean’s cocky grin was fake, a waver present in Sam’s snarky tone. 

“So, tell me about these award winning theories you have on the case,” Dean asked, pulling out of the Dunkin’ parking lot expertly, tires squeaking.   
“Okay. So the victims thus far have been three guys on the football team. Ted Henson is the big name I remember...he was a sort of school hero. The quarter back, cheerleaders’s boyfriend, the whole shebang,” Sam explained between scalding sips of coffee. He’d burnt his tongue already, but kept on drinking, more for the caffeine and comforting hand-to-mouth motion than the taste. 

“Sounds like an asshole,” Dean said, offering his wise two cents. 

“Probably. Anyway, the other two were also on the team, starters, well liked, local heros. I saw their pictures online, and they were all good looking guys from perfect, Leave it To Beaver status families.” 

“Lemme guess,” Dean said, chugging the remainder of his mostly sugar-and-milk coffee and rolling down the window to chuck the trash outside. Sam rolled his eyes but knew better than to say anything. Dean had a lot of irritating habits, and Sam learned which ones he had to live with, and which ones were worth starting a fight over. “PTA moms, Accountant Dads. The whole town is torn apart, memorial services and candle light vigils, news coverage...” 

“Bingo. But here’s where things get weird...” Sam mumbled, shuffling through the stack of notes on his lap. He pulled out a heavily highlighted newspaper article with a headline reading, ‘Tragedy Strikes Hazleton High: Four Students Dead, Town Mourning.’ Sam held the article up, squinting for the specific line he wanted. 

“Four murders?” Dean asked, eyes briefly abandoning the road to scan the headline. “I thought you said three.” 

“That’s what I thought. All the articles I could find went on and on, praising the hell out of this Ten Henson kid and his football buddies, and I couldn’t find anything on the fourth student. But here, in this one...” Sam held a long, faintly newsprint stained digit against the Article. “Madeline Alberts. A girl, a freshman was found dead at the beginning of the school year. The articles I found on her said it was suicide. But then these murders started happening with no explanation directly afterwards? Sounds suspicious. Not to mention, from what I could find on them, the murders seemed really grisly.” 

Sam looked at Dean expectantly, one eyebrow cocked. It was a look Dean was used to, this critical look that meant Dean should be putting pieces together and drawing conclusions like Sam had. Dean was terrible at that part of the job, though. He was good at pointing a gun at a target and hitting it dead between the eyes, He was good at sweet talking the lady nurses into letting them see the bodies on the autopsy table. This stuff though, this was Sam’s forte. Dean looked at him blankly, tongue prodding at the corner of his mouth. 

“...And?” He asked. 

“Do I have to spell it out for you?” Sam pretended to sound irritated, but there was a smirk playing along his lips; he secretly liked that Dean had a tough time drawing conclusions without him, it made him feel like in spite of all that had happened, they were still better off together. 

“No!” Dean lied, but Sam was already explaining, gesticulating with the hand that wasn’t balancing the coffee between his knees. “The boys were murdered in their houses, no sign of entry or exit. It was so violent they thought the first might have been a dog attack or something, until the other two happened identically. You know why Madeline Alberts killed herself, supposedly?” 

Dean looked incredulously at Sam. “Of course I know, She and I were great friends. Real buddies. I know whole life history, actually,” Dean bitched, narrowing green eyes at the swift moving traffic ahead of them. Sam ignored him, pulling out another, considerably shorter article on Madeline’s death. “Online bullying, it says here. Who do you want to bet was doing the bullying?” 

“A nice little prick like Ted Henson,” Dean said triumphantly, slapping the steering wheel. On any other day, any other year, any other universe where there wasn’t a hell and Dean hadn’t been to it, he might have told Sam good work. But it was this universe, and Dean still had nightmares unfalteringly and Sam still fucked up. Sam had still walked out that door, Sam had still started the goddamn thing, so Dean didn’t say anything, he just nodded. 

“Yep. Everyone knows those kind of kids...the popular jockstrap wearing high school football heros who have been handed everything on a silver platter. Probably called Madeline Alberts fat or ugly one too many times, and she couldn’t take it anymore. And now she’s back to get revenge.” Sam sighed, tucking the articles back into his laptop case, taking another bitter sip of coffee and cringing. He hated Dunkin’ Doughnuts, he really did. “So I say we go to the school, interview some kids about what kind of guys Ted and his friends really were. I bet we’ll hear they weren’t so great after all.” 

“God, I hate high school.” Dean griped, reaching across Sam’s thigh to fiddle with the radio. Just then Sam’s cell phone rang, and unfamiliar sound seeing as they had no family, and very few friends. Most everyone the Winchesters knew or had known were dead, and the remaining handful of living people who ever called them’s names and numbers were programmed into the phone. Sam was confused when an unknown number appeared, but only for a moment.

“Whose calling you? Bobby?” Dean asked uninterestedly, but his mouth dropped in disgust when he heard his brother pick up with a tentative, “Davey?” 

“Davey?! You gave Captain Vegan your phone number?!” Dean yelped, briefly considering slamming his breaks on and hauling Sam out of the passenger side for a good shake down. Sam glanced irritatedly at him, covering the cell phone with his palm. “Do you mind?” He snapped, before a “Oh, sorry, Jade.”   
“Did you leave us?” Jade’s voice sounded panicked and sharp, loud enough Dean could hear him from the driver side. He rolled his eyes dramatically, scoffing, “Oh Jesus Christ...” As Sam frantically tried to pacify him. 

“Only for a night. We wouldn’t have left a note if we were splitting for good,” Sam said practically, but Jade still sounded pissed off, from what Dean could decipher. And really, as thrilled as he was about the current situation Sam had dragged him into, he couldn’t blame the guy. It wasn’t every day you get separated from your friends and family, discover the apocalypse is dawning, and nearly get eaten by someone infected by a demon zombie virus. Dean supposed that Jade’s tone seemed applicable. 

“We’re most likely coming back by tomorrow, maybe tonight. Please don’t try and take a bus cross country, I swear we’re coming back,” Sam said, elbowing Dean in the shoulder when he nodded enthusiastically at the bus comment. Sam mouthed ‘gas money,‘ at him in what he hoped was a reassuring manner.  
“Here, if we don’t show by dinner time tomorrow night, you can figure out your own way home. But we will, alright?” 

Sam clicked the phone shut with a snap, slumping a little lower in his chair. “Jeez, that guy should get his anxiety meds checked out.” He rubbed his forehead, tossing the phone back into the glove compartment, where it nestled between some fake IDs and empty shot gun shells. He sighed.

“That’s what you get when you pick up strays,” Dean huffed, reaching between Sam’s knees and grabbing his coffee cup, downing the rest of it with a meaningful glare. Sam’s heart pounded from the contact, mind still racing from the initial place it jumped when Dean’s hand headed for that particular location. He swore internally, cursing Dean’s cocky little smile as he tossed that empty cup out the window, too, sending it off to clatter behind them on the highway, miles away from its brother. 

~*~

Jade was flat on his chest, Davey laying flush and half sprawled against his back talking about something, but Jade couldn’t be sure what it was. Everything was muffled, underwater, nothing of any significance existing outside of the steady rise and fall of their bodies together, outside of Davey’s solid sounding voice close and hot against Jade’s ear. People asked Jade a lot why AFI fans were different, why AFI was the kind of band that saved kids lives. Jade never knew exactly why, but he thought it might have something to do with Davey’s voice. It had a placating effect. 

Jade was faintly aware of that now, Davey’s wordless mumblings in his ear, the steady feel of his normal breathing trying to redirect Jade’s and steer it back onto the path and out of the dangerous territory on either side. They had a non-smoking room but Jade could detect the ghost of stale cigarettes in the sheets, reminding him of his grandfather. So there was the smell of smoke, the taste of fear, the crush of lungs and on top of all of that Davey, Davey’s voice and Davey’s solidity, pressing him into the mattress and causing him to grow roots, anchoring him to the earth. 

Really, Jade didn’t know how he survived without him. 

“I think I’m okay,” he choked out, strangled. He hardly trusted his voice, is often belied how he actually felt, but Davey miraculously believed him and moved slowly off his back. Jade’s shirt had gotten rucked up in the process, and Davey carefully pulled it back down, but not before he pressed a nervous, lingering kiss to the small of his back, mouth forming around a pained sigh. “Are you sure?” 

“Yeah. I am.” Jade rolled cautiously to his back, raking both his hands through his hair, distantly aware of how messy it was. Slept on, unshowered, mussed by Davey’s hands pushing through it again and again while he flattened Jade against the mattress and trapped him there with his body. Davey was hovering over him, arms crossed and then at his sides, then crossed again. He looked like he didn’t know what to do with them, so the positions changed rapid fire, and it was like looking at a flip-book, a kaleidoscope. Jade was a little queasy already, and this wasn’t helping. 

“You look worried,” Jade said, forehead creased. A weak sounding, humorless laugh was forced from Davey’s lungs, and he glanced to the floor, a tic making the side of his mouth twitch into a frown. Jade wanted to take the pad of his thumb and smooth it out, to drag Davey’s head to his own chest and hold him there.   
“Shouldn’t I be?” He asked, raising one brow. Jade noticed the dark, plum-wine colored half circles darkening the tender skin under Davey’s eyes. 

“No. You fixed it.” Jade sighed. And really, he wasn’t lying. This wasn’t the first time this happened, that Davey had saved him from a full blown, breathing in and out into a paper bag status panic attack. Jade had no idea if his method was some proven thing, but he remembered when Hunter was going through his Justin Timberlake phase and he forced the band to watch Black Snake Moan, Christina Ricci’s character had calmed her boyfriend’s anxiety much in the same way: chest flush against the back, deep breathing, a voice in the ear. Jade couldn’t imagine it having the same effect with anyone’s voice but Davey’s, however. He guessed he was lucky that way.

“You should go back to sleep,” Jade told Davey, patting the bed’s rumpled sheets next to him. He knew it was bull shit though, Davey wouldn’t be able to rest for a good while after this. He’d be shaken up from it, eyes going dark and glistening whenever they focused on anything for too long. 

“Yeah, you’re right,” Davey said quietly, sitting down gingerly next to Jade and drawing his knees to his chest, distant look proving he was somewhere else, the place he ran off to when he was scared about something. Jade externalized his fear and worry, but Davey internalized it, letting it eat him from the inside out until it forced its way out of his body destructively, bleeding all over the walls, staining the linoleum and leaving a fatal exit wound. That was the way Davey did things, he exploded, he broke bones, broke skin. What he meant when he told Jade he was right was fat chance. 

Jade sighed. It had been a rough day. It probably would be rough from here on out, really, if Sam and Dean were right about the whole Revelations business. Jade had awoken that morning next to Davey who had clearly just fallen asleep, headphones still in and knees bent, above the covers. He spent the majority of the day sleeping the night before off like a bad fever, leaving Jade to his own devices. Jade’s own devices consisted of making music, playing stupid flash games on Newgrounds, writing. There were only so many hours those things offered however, especially when Jade’s sanity was sleeping like a corpse in the bed, drooling all over his pillow. 

Jade didn’t fare well when the world was ending and Davey was sleeping. Things built beneath his solar plexus without him realizing, and before he knew it he was nearly crying to Sam Winchester on the phone, not long before Davey woke up and knocked some sense into him, put him between the smoky sheets and his own ribcage. 

He tried not to feel guilty about being a wreck over this. It shouldn’t be too hard, seeing there had been plenty of times in their lives together when Davey needed Jade entirely, leaned on him like he was boneless, given him everything, taken it all and then some. Those times didn’t end well, though, in fact they ended quite awfully. Packed suitcases, broken drinking glasses, broken people. 

Jade watched Davey pace without realizing he was pacing, walking between the television set to the foot of the bed and back, rubbing at his left forearm. His frame looked small and concave, and with a sudden start Jade realized Davey hadn’t eaten anything since his stir fry at the restaurant last night, and the sun was already setting. His limbs still shaking, Jade heaved himself up and busied himself at the table, using his trembling hands to open a can of black olives. If he was good for nothing else, he at least make Davey dinner. 

They stopped at a Whole Foods on the way to the motel the prior night, and there davey had picked up plethora of vegan canned things: lentils, olives, spinach, corn. Then where was some bread, pitas, and fruit. All together he had a week or so’s worth of the four main food groups, enough to last him. When Davey got stressed out he got very far into his head, however, and forgot to eat and drink. This usually manifested itself by him getting crippling headaches he complained about, until someone figured out he was empty-stomached and dehydrated and forced a couple of rice cakes and water into the guy, reviving him. 

Because Jade was in tune to Davey like no one else on the planet, he usually caught the nutrition issue before it got too out of hand. Thinking of this, Jade cracked open a container of hummus, spreading it on a pita and slicing some olives with the fancy pocket knife his brother gave him years ago, when Smith was still convinced Jade could learn how to be handy. It usually hung on his key ring uselessly, but finally seeing as it was the end of times and all, that handiness seemed rather appealing again.

“Here, you need to eat,” Jade said in a curt, tired voice, handing Davey the pita wrap. Davey started at it with mild disgust and a sort of perplexed gaze that made Jade think he forgot food existed at all, let alone was necessary for survival. 

“Thanks but I’m not hungry,” Davey mumbles, smiling a smile that didn’t meet his tired eyes. Jade pressed on, knowing how Davey got. “Yeah, you are hungry you just can’t tell right now. Take a bite, please?” He urged. Davey’s face looked pained, and he licked his dry lips with a darting tongue. 

“Jade...”

“Come on man, for me?” Jade made his eyes big. That tactic stopped working on Davey years and years ago, even before Jade left, but force of habit made him resort to it in desperate times. These were certainly desperate times, and Davey gave in, sighing as he took the wrap. He might have done it just to pacify Jade, but as he reluctantly took a bite, chewed, and swallowed, his head cocked thoughtfully. 

“Pretty good,” he admitted after a few bites, uneasy gaze flitting up to Jade. 

“Yeah well we all know I’m a gourmet chef,” Jade said, slapping Davey’s shoulder affectionately. Davey ate the entire thing after that, licked the hummus from his fingers and ate another after that, which he made Jade construct. “They taste better that way,” was his argument, and Jade pretended to be exasperated, but really he was enormously relieved. At least he was good for something, even if it was making Davey food. 

~*~

South of Davey and Jade in Pennsylvania, the Winchester brothers were hunched in a tight, rubbery red booth at some generic roadside diner. Dean loved these kind of places with their bad coffee and average food that all the locals raved about. Sam was less enthusiastic but really who could complain when hungry was hungry and food was food and nothing was poisoned. Demonstrating his miraculous ability to live of an alarmingly un-diverse diet or shakes, fries, and burgers, Dean took a hefty bite of quarter pounder with bacon. Sam picked at a club salad with two ugly looking, dry chicken tenders on a pile of wilted lettuce. 

The day had been mostly productive in the way of cracking the case, all evidence supporting Sam’s initial suspicion that Madeline Alberts had not yet crossed over, and was offing her tormenters one by one. Judging by the students they’d talked too, it seemed a plausible theory that Madeline’s suicide was the result of relentless teasing. 

“If you ask me,” Dean said thickly through a mouthful of chewed burger, “those assholes had what was coming.” He stabbed his fork forcefully down into the thatch of curly fries which crowded his plate, spearing an impressive amount of them before dunking it into a river of ketchup. The ketchup was salted, and Sam’s gag reflex worked subtly in the back of his throat as he watched Dean eat. It was amazing how someone who pissed him off and grossed him out almost all the time could still be the same person whose image he took to the shower every night when he got a minute alone with his hand. It was even more amazing that this someone was his brother. He shook his head, lip curling. 

“I’ve lost my appetite,” was Sam’s response. Dean ignored him, continuing.   
“What do you think, think those little peckers deserved it?” He noisily slurped the few syrupy inches of shake out of the bottom of the glass. Sam supposed he was going all out tonight, seeing as his gas money could be put to other uses, now. 

“I don’t know. I mean, it seems like for how well liked the papers are making them seem, half the student body got shoved in the dumpster. They weren’t exactly nice guys,” Sam pushed the salad around his plate, debating on whether or not it was worth it to choke down a few mouthfuls. 

“I hate that shit. I hate douchebags who pick on kids who are smaller than them,” Dean snarled. Sam regarded him, counting down the seconds before Dean reached across the table with his fork and stole the chicken tenders from Sam’s plate without asking. 

“Dean, you were that guy who put the kids in the dumpster,” Sam scoffed, looking at Dean’s handsome features through his own chestnut hair, which fell in newly-clean whorls across his brow. He knew this statement was only half true, Dean certainly did get to deliver his fair share of ass-whooping in school, but only to the people who messed with Sam. It was the big brother complex that would be forever engrained in him, to hate the jocks who gave kids wedgies and made them cry uncle. Dean’s mission for the first eighteen years of his life was to make these kinds of kid’s live’s hell. 

“Yeah, only when they deserve it,” Dean grumbled, eyeing Sam’s plate. “Are you gonna eat that chicken?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow. Sam shook his head, wrinkling his nose. “No.” 

Dean smiled as he speared the chicken with his fork and dipped it in that awful tar-pit of salted ketchup staining half his plate. Sam tried to be as disgusted as before, but the pure, easy smile that slid slow and lazy and dog-like across Dean’s mouth made it hard to feel anything but an inexcusable ache in his chest, his throat, his bones. It was both strange and wonderful and unbearable to see Dean smile like that, to be happy about anything, even two strips of sub par chicken. So much about Dean and his regard for Sam was forced right now. To witness something as easy as a real, unguarded smile made Sam both hate the deepest levels of himself and actually feel a spark of hope flicker in his chest before it was gone, blown out by the gun smoke like everything else. 

“So, next plan of action?” Sam asked, voice tighter sounding than he would have liked it to be.   
“Dessert.” Dean said.   
“You just had a shake.”   
“Dessert, Sam.” His voice was firm, cutting into Sam’s patronizing tone like a buzz saw, depleting it to pieces.   
“Fine, and after Dessert?”

“Graveyard to salt and burn Madeline’s remains. Then sleep.” Dean said, already flipping through the dessert menu with a critical eye, index finger with scabbed knuckles and a burn scar across the second joint poking the sticky, laminated pages apart. Sam nodded, folding his hands. Sounded easy enough. 

~*~

Unfortunately, things at West Hazleton’s tiny church cemetery proved to be a whole hell of a lot more complicated than a simple “salt and burn.” It wouldn’t have been such a troublesome endeavor had there been remains to salt and burn, but much to the Winchester’s frustration there was no actual grave, merely a marker. Even more of a pain the ass was that Dean started digging without entertaining the notion that Madeline might be cremated, and he’d already gotten a foot into the ground when it dawned on Sam that this was definitely a commemorative placard, but not nearly a big enough space for an entire coffin. 

“Son of a bitch...” Dean griped, his grey tee shirt clinging to the hard outline of his shoulders, adhered by a sheen of sweat that made his flushed neck glisten in the dark. He stabbed the ground with his shovel, grunting as the dirty metal sliced through dying grass and newly turned, fresh smelling earth. He huffed noisily, wiping sweat from his brow on his shirt sleeve. “So what’s keeping the bitch here if the body is cremated?” He asked Sam, eyes narrowed and fist tight around the shovel. The way he was looking at his brother made Sam think Dean wanted to make this his fault, that syrup slow smile from the diner long since wiped away. 

“You know...some item she’s tied to. Something important to her,” Sam could think of one thousand examples from their past hunts. It could be anything, from a cherished toy to a possessed truck. He hoped it was easier to salt and burn than the latter, however. 

“Goddamnit...” Dean swore, yanking the shovel from the earth and busying himself with refilling the shallow grave he’d just dug. The creases in his hands were dark with grime, a dusty patch on the knee of his jeans where he’d knelt. Sam watched him, suddenly bone weary, like he couldn’t stand here in the graveyard with his brother for another second. 

“We’re calling it a night,” He told Dean, striding over to him and forcing the shovel from his hands. Dean’s body was radiating heat, a humming electrical mess of blood pulsing audibly, repelling Sam like the wrong kind of magnet.

“What, before I cover this mess up?” He snapped, wrenching the shovel back. Sam stole it from him immediately after with a grunt. No matter how tough Dean liked to think he was, Sam was inevitably bigger and one out on this one, especially seeing as Dean’s arms were tired and weakened with the exertion of digging. They stood in silence after that, crickets chirruping from the cracks of stone grave markers while Sam cleaned up, heaving shovelful after shovelful of black, wet dirt back into the hole. He could feel Dean’s eyes on him all the while, brilliantly green and boring disapproving holes into Sam’s shoulder blades. He could tell they’d both be sore in the morning. 

“Stay the night here and try and find the relic she’s tied to tomorrow?” Sam grunted between shoveling, trying hard not to glance at Dean’s stoic profile in the dark, cast in weak street light. 

“Nah, nah. I need to drive. It’s only two hours to the hotel and gas is covered now anyway,” He said gruffly, voice muffled by the distinct sound of his boot kicking redundantly against a grave marker. For a man of honor Dean had little respect for the dead; he’d seen what they could do fueled by the right amount of venom. 

“Okay. Fair enough,” Sam mumbled. He was almost finished, fingers stinging around the handle of the shovel, grit working itself into his skin. He looked up to the sky to clear his head for the last few scoops of dirt, scanning the endless grey-blue for a silver of moon, but he couldn’t find it for the life of him.


	8. Chapter 8

Sam and Dean were unexpectedly awoken the following morning by a firm rapping at their door, the unmistakable sound of knuckles against cheap plywood. Judging by the way the repetitive, gun-shot loud disturbance worked its way into Sam’s fading half-dream, he figured whoever it was had been at it for awhile. Disoriented and limbs heavy with sleep, Sam fumbled blindly around the motel room looking for the general direction of the door, in the process stubbing his toe on the duffel bag full of firearms and tripping over Dean’s boots which were in the goddamn middle of the floor. He finally found the door, squinting through the peephole at whoever was going to get ripped a new one. Lo and Behold, it was Captain Vegan, hair an alarmingly chaotic mess, and bags under his eyes making him look an extra ten years older.

Sam opened the door, bleary eyed and pissed off. “This better be good,” He told Davey, bracing himself against the door frame. Despite Davey’s disheveled appearance, his voice came out even and collected, and he held up a poor quality black and white print-out of Madeline Albert’s yearbook photo. Sam had seen the picture online in color, her lips painted red and hair dyed a bottle black. The colorless version makes her eyes and mouth three shadowy vacancies in her pale, unsmiling visage. 

“She’s doing it, right?” Davey asked, raising an eyebrow. Sam stared at him blankly, waiting for his statement to register properly. His gaze dropped to the photo, then lifted up to Davey and his expectant expression, bumping between the two like a ping-pong ball on a table, bouncing off respective paddles. 

“How...what....?” Sam asked, grabbing the sheet of paper from Davey’s hand and examining it up close. “Where did you get this?” 

“The internet, of course. She’s the one, right? Whose killing them? Her ghost?” 

Sam was back in the room, finding the pair of jeans he wore last night and tugging them up clumsily, pulling a shirt over his head that was too tight, realizing with a jolt in his chest that the sweat smell in it was Dean’s, not his own. He ripped it off and found his own clothes, wadded into a dirty pile by the bathroom door. “Stay there,” He shouted from the bathroom, inciting a disgruntled moan from a still-sleeping Dean. After brushing his teeth and slapping a few tremulous handfuls of cold water onto his cheeks he was ready to go, meeting Davey at the door, motel key a comfortable and familiar shape in his pocket. “What is this?” Davey asked curiously, poking the toe of his shoe at the salt line at the door. 

“Salt” Sam said curtly, like it made sense to someone like Davey, “It’s a necessary precaution.” 

“Salt...like table salt?”

Sam ignored him. “Lets take a walk,” He told Davey, already striding through the parking lot. Davey struggled to keep up on much shorter legs, skidding on a patch of gravel.

“Am I right?’ He asked, pushing his tongue against the vacancy that used to hold his lip ring, eyes two patches of bright certainty sunken in his tired looking face.   
“Yeah, you are. How did you figure that out? We didn’t tell you anything,” Sam said, rubbing the remnants of sleep still crusty and itching out of the corners of his eyes. He looked hard and defensively down at Davey, suddenly aware of how short he was in comparison to Dean, and certainly in comparison to himself. 

“You told us enough. You mentioned where you were going in your note, and I wasn’t exactly sleeping soundly after everything that happened, so all I had to do was google “High school murders in PA” and around ten thousand articles came up,” Davey explained, talking fast and gesticulating animatedly, giving off the impression of someone who hadn’t slept in a long while, but was past the point of being incapacitated and back into the realm of wired. 

“Then,” Davey continued, “ I found out about Madeline through one of the articles, and right away I knew she was involved...so Jade found her on facebook. It’s sick, there’s all these memorial pages for the boys, but there’s nothing on her. Her profile was totally abandoned, and none of her friends on facebook went to the high school.” 

As Sam listened to Davey, cogs were turning in his mind, forming shape around the things he was saying. Facebook was something that entirely alluded Sam; he didn’t have a profile and therefore was unable to view other’s profiles. Davey spoke of it as if it were second nature, something he assumed Sam knew the basis of without explanation. 

“I know kids like this,” Davey said meaningfully, a note of sad urgency lacing his words. “I _was_ a kid like this. I checked out her music taste, her pictures, her friends...she was depressed, clearly an outsider. She was an AFI fan--”

“Is this what you’re on about?!” Sam snapped, stopping in his tracks and facing Davey, well over six feet of confusion and incredulity looming over him. Still, Davey didn’t flinch, just regarded Sam patronizingly in the early morning sunlight filtering through the tousles of his hair. “Of course not. My point is that I understand kids like this, because they come to my shows.” His voice was maddeningly calm. 

r32;“And what does that have to do with anything? Unless you can tell me what her spirit might be tied to here so we can burn it, then--” Davey cut Sam off. “Let me finish.” 

“All ears,” Sam sighed skeptically, wondering how on earth Davey managed to get him out of bed and wandering along the Newburgh sidewalk before nine in the morning while Dean slept like a fucking baby knocked out in one of the beds, just because of some dead girl’s yearbook picture he’d already seen. 

“She didn’t have a lot of friends at her school. Kids like these usually don’t, their peers can’t understand them so they tend to make older, mentor-like friends outside of school. Usually through music, the internet, etc.” Davey babbled authoritatively like being in a band gave him some degree in child psychology or something. Sam wanted to bitch about it, call him out, but really he hadn’t said a single thing that was off base yet. From what the kids at West Hazleton Hight told Sam yesterday, Madeline kept mostly to herself and her headphones. 

“So using that knowledge, Jade and I stalked her facebook profile to find where her true loyalties were. There was this kid, Jeremy Lyon who was tagged in a lot of her pictures. Turns out he’s her best friend, and he takes art classes at the community college. We facebook chatted him, and he ended up telling us a whole fucking lot about those boys on the football team.” Davey took a deep breath once he forced the story out, chest swelling as he looked up at Sam for approval. Sam had to admit, he was kind of shocked. Never in his life had someone so eagerly taken up research. Sam had to beg Dean to help him on this sort of thing. Even though much of what Davey told him lined up with what he and Dean had already figured out, Davey had acquired it all from the screen of a computer without having to drive two and a half hours to interview snot nosed, acne crippled teenagers. Sam was kind of impressed. 

Their walking had taken them a few blocks up, through a generic list of establishments. Old fashioned barber shop, beauty supply, sneaker store, laundromat, burger place, movie rentals. All of them with dusty windows bearing signs reading “closed,” a series of empty eyes regarding Sam and Davey judgmentally. They had stopped to stand and talk at an empty bus stop, Sam leaning casually on the bench, Davey standing to his left with his arms crossed nervously. 

“Nice work,” Sam finally said, rubbing at the back of his neck, eyes scanning the empty road. For a monday morning around nine it seemed oddly vacant, like a ghost town. He half expected to see a tumbleweed clatter by, collecting trash and filth as it traveled past them. “But tell me something I don’t know. Remember, we’re professionals, we got all this.”

“There’s more,” Davey said, voice tainted with that urgent sadness again. It struck Sam, the way Davey seemed affected by this whole thing emotionally, tied to Madeline in solidarity. Sam tried to remember the last time a case was more than professional and had actually touched him on personal level only because he identified with a victim or spirit. 

“You want to hear?” Davey asked, testily, wringing his hands and spinning a ring around his middle finger, twisting it back and forth.

Sam looked at him critically, thinking that they must have been quite the picturesque pair, one tall, Levis and flannel wearing monster next to this thin guy in skinny jeans and a pale yellow and pink teeshirt. Davey was the Easter basket to Sam’s Rugged, Paul Bunyan look alike, and it was rather unsettling for both of them to be accompanied by such a contrast to their usual companion. “Shoot,” Sam said.

“Do you know why Madeline killed herself?” Davey asked carefully, eyes flitting across the gritty sidewalk. 

“We figured because those guys teased her. I mean come on, look at the kid. She’s not exactly the kind of girl football stars ask to prom,” Sam said with a shrug. He noticed a twinkle spark like flint and firewood in the darkest part of Davey’s eyes, an excited realization underneath all that sad understanding. He licked his lips, shaking his head at Sam. 

“No, she didn’t. See, that’s what everyone thinks, but Madeline was tough. Jeremy said that if she killed herself just because someone gave her shit, she would have been dead a long time ago.”

“So...?” Sam pressed on, uncomfortable in the position Dean usually assumed. Clueless, in the dark. He chewed in the inside of his cheek, tasting the tangy metallic bite of raw skin as he tried to swallow the fact he didn’t have the upper hand. The guy in the Easter basket colored shirt did. 

“She was raped. Gang raped, by Ten Henson and three of his friends, two of which are already dead. She tried to press charges but the local authorities didn’t believe her,” Davey explained, working his pale hand through a dark, oily mess of his hair and scratching his nails along the scalp. 

“Of course they didn’t, the town loves Henson. His parents are probably on the goddamn police force,” Sam said, realization dawning on him. Of course. A spirit as vengeful as Madeline’s couldn’t have been born from merely ridicule, no matter how malicious. 

“Yeah, not to mention small towns always glorify the shit out of their high school football heros. I would know.” Davey said. Sam’s gaze snapped to him, perplexed. 

“You were a high school football hero?” he scoffed, furrowing his brow and forcing a tiny, dry laugh out of his chest, shifting weight from foot to foot. 

“No,” Davey said wistfully. “I was Madeline Alberts. Lipstick and everything,” He looked down and jammed his hands in his pockets, distantly smiling at Sam in this weird wounded way. It was too bright out for his liking, eyes half shut against the harsh, scrubbed-raw brightness of a clear and cloudless sky. “What happened to her was horrible.” He added. Sam was suddenly staring hard at the stubbled line of Davey’s jaw, eyes squinted in the sun, tired, old, red rimmed. Something in Davey’s face reminded Sam of his own brother for a split, horrifying second. The straight line of his nose, the faded ghosts of laugh lines at his temples. As soon as he saw it, it disappeared, and he shook his head. “Fucked up,” He agreed.

“Most definitely. Jeremy said these guys are real creeps, and Madeline wasn’t the first girl they took advantage of. She was just the one ballsy enough to go to the authorities. Such sick stuff though...freshman alone in the library, or after a foot ball game under the bleachers. This power game. He said they took trophies and everything.” Davey wrinkled his nose, face a mask of disgust, bitter and cynical. Sam’s stomach clenched. 

“Wait, what did you say?”

“They took trophies as a sort of conquest thing. Jeremy said they’d take pictures at first, but the it got personal...jewelry, locks of hair.” he looked puzzled at Sam’s intense expression, at the way he was fishing his cell phone from his pocket frantically. Sam needed to call his brother, right away. 

“What? Is that important?”Davey asked, trotting again to keep up with Sam, who was striding meaningfully back in the direction of the motel, cell pressed against his ear. 

“Dean?” he asked when a groggy ‘hullo...‘answered, following the muted rustling sound of someone’s still sleep-clumsy fingers trying to claw apart a flip phone. 

“Dean, we missed some of Madeline’s remains.” 

“What’re you talkin’ about...hey, where are you?” Dean’s voice was gentle albeit rough around the edges at first, but it rose at the end of his statement, suddenly sharp. Sam imagined him sitting bolt upright in his bed with hair sticking up on one side as he stared with panic at Sam’s empty bed, rushing to the window to see if the car was still there, if the salt lines at the door were broken. 

“Get dressed, we’re going back to Pennsylvania,” Sam barked at him. “I got a lead on the thing keeping her here and her next victim, and you won’t believe who from.” 

~*~

Jade was on the phone when Davey got back to the room, looking shockingly put together considering his mental state over the last few days. The television was on much to Davey’s distaste, and he was about to stride over to it and make a big show of shutting it off when he heard a snippet of the news story and actually paused to listen, his blood icing over.   
“Reported Quarantine Zones as of Monday: Buffalo New York, San Francisco, California’s Tenderloin District, Pleasanton CA, Palo Alto, CA, Merced, CA....” The california list went on and on, tearing a direct path through the bay and down across the Great central Valley, where it stagnated, seemingly dormant as cities became farther and farther apart. Davey’s heart was pounding, the same way it did when California broke out in wild fires every summer, and he had to listen to the news and map out how close they were to his multiple residences while touring in Europe or wherever.

Only then did he realize Jade was snapping his fingers at him to move, waving him away from the screen. “Sorry dude, Dave’s ass was blocking the TV...I think the last place they mentioned was Tejon. That’s before the Grape Vine, so it hasn’t touched Castaic yet.”

“Whose on the phone?” Davey hissed, wanting badly to reach out and clutch some part of Jade, but knowing he shouldn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t. Jade glared at him, covering the receiver and whispering “Smith!” because he knew Davey would relentlessly ask if he didn’t give in and answer the first time. He left after that, shuffling to the bathroom and locking himself in to prevent any further disturbances. Davey wanted to grab his arm and stop him, dig his nails in and beg for company, but knew he shouldn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t. 

It was this strange unspoken mental block that prevented Davey from allowing himself to be close to Jade, physically or emotionally. It had been long enough after Jade coming back in some sense of the word that he didn’t exactly have the right to be as mistrustful as he was, but Davey didn’t want to believe this. He was self righteous and hurt enough by Jade leaving in the first place that time meant nothing, and no matter how much of it passed during which Jade remained with him, he didn’t ever envision a future devoid of these episodes, when Davey would suddenly become as angry as he had four years ago, as deeply wounded and betrayed. 

Some days, Davey just couldn’t touch Jade, and couldn’t let himself be touched. It was the days when everything that had happened between them over those preceding years came rushing back, all the anger and betrayal and self-hate filling the empty spaces in Davey’s body and poisoning his organs, so each breath from his lungs and beat from his heart reminded him of it. And under everything, there was a long running, habitual fear that he couldn’t touch Jade because Jade wouldn’t be here forever, and Davey couldn’t live through that again. 

Davey was also vaguely aware that the days this fear and paralysis attacked him  
were random and unpredictable, and rarely had anything to do with how Jade acted. It was entirely his own issue, dependent upon his own fickle moods and trust issues. Today, for example. Jade was acting perfectly normal, or as normal as any guy who just canceled his band’s tour in favor for traveling cross country amidst apocalyptic threat, but here Davey was standing in the motel room with his skin crawling like he’d just found a spider in the sheets. These days he simultaneously reviled and craved Jade’s contact and attention, longing for a hand on his elbow just so he could smack it off and shoot daggers in his direction, lips pursed in that flat line that screamed, _how dare you touch me when you fucked me over so hard?_ Even though that fucking over occurred years ago, even though Jade was constantly paying for it. It didn’t seem to matter, the wounds still seemed fresh on days like these, a sore scar worked open by prying fingers and leaking lymph and blood again in tiny, furious droplets. 

Those fingers could belong to a number of things, things that didn’t always have to do with Jade. Traffic. A poor review on the album. A sore throat. A depressive episode. A bad day. This morning, for example, the fingers belonged to this news report telling Davey the state he grew up in and currently resided in was a third of the way quarantined courtesy of the Croatoan Virus. The words cut deep into Davey, into the old, still tender places that Jade lacerated four years ago, and now they were once again infected. It really was an inconvenience, these scars, because they prevented Davey from opening up to the person he shared his head and heart and bed with when he needed it most. California was infected just like he was, and Davey was a million miles away with two strangers who hunted ghosts while his band and family were home. He was scared and isolated and exhausted, but instead of that registering all of that as a new wound, it resounded deep in those old scars. 

It made Davey feel like he couldn’t touch Jade, and this was a problem for both of them. 

He really, really hated the TV. He hated television, and almost all things that were broadcasted on Television, except for movies. But even then, the movies were edited for television, so it wasn’t even good for that. In spite of that deep rooted hatred for the TV, Davey sat mechanically down on the foot of their bed and watched it. From what he could gather, the virus had a few outbreaks on the east coat, but mostly began in the dead center of the country and cut a clear trail westward until it began traveling through California. 

Based on his limited knowledge concerning this apocalypse stuff, the maps they were broadcasting on ever station seemed like the path The Devil was taking, the little cross country road trip he was on himself. The trail Sam and Dean were following. This knowledge sent spikes of fear up Davey’s spine, but he tried to ignore it, tried to call upon that simple, detached understanding that a ghost was killing highs schoolers in PA and he was okay with that. He believed it, even wanted to believe it, and had investigated the circumstance with the healthily removed, untouched eye of a surgeon. No fear of blood. He tried to apply that same indifference to the current peril his home state was in, and failed. Without realizing it, Davey drew his knees to his chest, teeth gritted against the oncoming storm. 

By the time Jade got off the phone, Davey had already compiled a list of mental grievances against him and what he had done to him four years ago. He was fuming mad about it, too. Oblivious to the soon to be experienced wrath, Jade let himself out of the bathroom, cheeks flushed slightly pink in relief. He didn’t seem to notice Davey glaring, and launched into debriefing the conversation he just had. 

“So that was Smith. While you were gone I was watching the news, and started getting really concerned at how quickly the virus spread, especially on the west coast. I called him up, and apparently the news casters are sensationalizing the hell out of things, as usual...the so called “quarantine” zones don’t mean they’ve quarantined the entire area. They’re just areas where a few outbreaks have happened. Smith said the power’s been out, because of more firestorms and plague-like shit. Flies, heat waves. The news hasn’t seemed to have made a connection with those to the disease, though...figures...Dave? Are you okay?” He trailed off, look of relief fading to a concerned line through his forehead. 

“I’m fine,” Davey said icily, picking at the remnants of polish on his nails. “I’m so glad to hear Smith’s alright. I wish you had of let me talk to him, though.” The tone present in Davey’s words carried with it clear intention. 

“You can call him up if you want.” Jade caught on by now, eyes narrowed at Davey and his tone. Davey got this tone when he was upset, a tinny, high sound touching his voice so subtly that people who didn’t know him hardly noticed, but those who did knew to steer clear. Jade knew him better than anyone, and he picked up on it almost instantly. 

“Whatever,” Davey sighed, hating how immature he sounded. He really was so glad Smith was fine, and could practically hear the relaxed, Devil-may-care tone of his voice, telling Jade that the power going out had been sort of fun. More time for barbecues and basketball games. Still, he needed to find something external to pin his unwarranted fury at Jade upon, something better than _you left_ , because really that was getting old. Even though Jade was still guilty enough that if Davey did pull that card, he’d grovel like it had happened yesterday, tail between the legs, pathetic enough it only made Davey angrier. Instead of fighting actively they just stared at each other, Jade understanding on some level that Davey was scared and this was how he showed it, Davey understanding on some level that he was being unfair, and therefore maintaining his self control. 

Still, when Jade reached out gently and pushed past the stormy weather between them coloring the room slate grey, Davey pulled away like the touch burnt him, feeling almost as pleased as disgusted with himself. 

~*~

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Dean growled, eyes locked on the road so fiercely they were watering from the exertion. He had a head ache. His knuckles were white. His stomach was angry at him for eating the greasy, powdered egg breakfast burrito they’d picked up at a gas station. He hated Davey. He hated Sam. But still, Dean was driving towards Pennsylvania, Sam rattling off half-familiar directions to West Hazleton from the passenger side for the second time in two days. 

“Will you come down from your high horse, Dean? The guy did great research. And he has cultural capital that we certainly don’t have,” Sam complained, his overgrown hair whipping him in the forehead, eyes squinted against the onslaught of battering air from the window. Under the sleeves of his jacket Dean’s skin was pebbled in gooseflesh, seeing at the sky had turned a pitiful grey the farther south they drove. He didn’t care how uncomfortable he was though, as long as he was making his brother uncomfortable. Sam wasn’t hassling Dean for the unnecessarily opened windows however, so Dean was half hoping it started raining so he could hear Sam start bitching. 

“Cultural capital? What the hell is that?” Dean spat. He hated when Sam came out of left field with his Stanford, college boy, first year Economics bullshit. It made Dean’s mind travel to all the times Sam had abandoned him in different cities or different towns, all the times the kid had run off and left him to pick up the pieces of a shattered family, while he learned words like Cultural Capital. 

“Come on Dean.”

“No, prick. Give us poor folks a definition, seeing we all didn’t get the fine education you did off in California,” Dean said bitterly, fist tightening around the steering wheel. He knew as he said it that he went too far. There were a lot of things he was allowed to guilt trip Sam for...things in the recent past. Stanford was not one of them, but still it poked its ugly head into every one of Dean’s nightmares of Hell, still it returned to remind Dean he was replaceable then, just as he was replaceable now. He could feel Sam bristling next to him, though, could imagine the tight little nod to the side Sam would do with his head. The furrow in his brow, the cluck of his tongue moving wordlessly against the roof of this mouth, begging to launch into all the reasons Dean was being unreasonable. Which were plentiful. But Dean didn’t care. Sam left him for Stanford back then, and Sam left him for a demon bitch only months ago, and therefore there was no motherfucking reason in the world why Dean should listen to a goddamn word his brother said.

 

But still, he was driving to Pennsylvania. He was driving to Pennsylvania, and he had a post-it with Richard Campell of the West Hazleton football team’s current address stuck to the dash. All because of Sam’s sappy little heart to heart with Captain Vegan this morning. 

Dean went to hell for Sam, and Davey knew how to use facebook chat. It just figured whose lead they were using. Not that Dean even had a lead.

“Cultural Capital is knowledge that’s not general, but comes with a certain profession of culture. For example, Davey and Jade know more about technology and social networking websites because their job requires them to be social. Unlike us, where our job requires us to have no allegiances. This makes them a valuable asset, because they have cultural capital that we lack.” Sam delivered this whole speech very coldly, stating “No Allegiances” with utter cruelty. He also used his “academic voice” to say it, which drove Dean absolutely insane. He wished he didn’t love his car so much, because then he could smash the passenger side up against a tree or something. 

“Oh well then. Why don’t you just take a bus to California with the celebrities if their Cultural Capital is so goddamn valuable,” Dean huffed, only halfheartedly though because he could tell by the acid in Sam’s voice that he’d pushed him too far. Part of what infuriated Dean so deeply about this whole shit-show was the fact that it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. He was so fucking worried about Sam abandoning him that he drove him away, so bitter and angry that no one could get even close to what was inside, lest of all Sam. 

“Dean...” Sam said, voice exhausted and torn apart, like the scrap of fabric Dean used to wipe his hands half-clean after testing the oil in the car. That scrap was cut from one of Sam’s old shirts, coincidentally, some fraction of the boy his brother used to be now frayed and blackened with engine grease. “Can we agree that there’s a vengeful spirit killing high schoolers?” Sam asked. 

Dean’s mind briefly raced across all the potential ways he could invalidate this statement, but his brain wasn’t working quick enough. “Yes,” he said grumpily. 

“Can we agree that we want to stop it?” Sam continued. 

Dean nodded in agreement this time, too spiteful to repeat that three letter word again. 

“Well let’s just try this then. We have no other leads, and if it doesn’t work we’ll be in the area. No harm no foul.” Sam finished, and Dean actually made himself look at his brother. It was a mistake, his eyes were somehow desperate, longing, the color of black coffee just barely touched with cream. Dean gritted his jaw together, cursing every ounce of blood that pounded a little harder from his heart at the look Sam was giving him. He wished it was just that easy, that this look could melt all the months worth of ice built there, could put out the fire hell stoked there. He wished it, but it just couldn’t happen. Dean had been kicked out in the cold one too many times, while Sam used terms like Cultural Capital and fraternized with rock stars. 

 

“Fine,” Dean managed to choke out, eyes back on the road. So that was how they ended up listening to Davey Havok and heading to potential rapist Richard Campbell’s residence to look for a lock of Madeline’s hair. It seemed like a flawless plan, except for the glaringly obvious issue that Davey Havok was a celebrity with an attitude problem, and not a hunter. Dean was just waiting for this to go up in flames, so he could deliver a hearty, “I told you so,” to Sam. 

By the time Sam and Dean ended up at Richard’s house, Dean had already thought up a few creative ways in which they could forget Davey and Jade and their cultural capital at the motel, but end up in possession of their wallets. He was entertaining these fantasies and he trumped heavily up the Campbell’s front steps, rapping his knuckles against a the door. It was a normal suburban house in a normal suburban neighborhood, and that was enough for Dean to already deem the place creepy. No one answered, and he peered through the window. 

“I think they’re gone,” He muttered to himself more than Sam, who was making sure the garage and driveway were vacated. Seeing as it was a Monday, they were most likely at work and school, so the Winchesters decided it was safe to break in through the kitchen window, tracking mud on the linoleum in the process, which Dean swore he’d sweep up before they left. 

Richard Campbell’s room seemed to be pretty unremarkable for a teenage boy, the walls covered in tacked up posters of foot ball teams, one signed Jersey hanging reverently above the headboard of a rumpled, dirty-sheeted bed. There was evil-smelling laundry scattered in clumps on the floor, open school notebooks and a wastepaper basket overflowing with rank trash. Dean wrinkled his nose, kicking at a pair of untied running shoes he nearly tripped over. “Goddamn jocks,” he muttered under his breath, already rummaging through Richard’s desk-drawer in search of suspicious items. 

They snooped through the bedside table, where they found some expired condoms and gum wrappers. They snooped through a box under the bed, which was full of typically vile Penthouse magazines Dean waggled his eyebrows at. They snooped through the closet, which was so packed with shit the snooping was actually more of poking around a bunch of stuff that tumbled out and rolled all over the floor of the kids room. Amid all of this shit, Sam found a cigar box latched shut, tucked under a stack of books Richard probably hadn’t touched since he was a third grader.

“Break the latch off this...” Sam mumbled, handing it to Dean and heading back to the rubble in the closet, literally rolling his sleeves up for better access. Using the barrel of his rock-salt loaded pistol, Dean obeyed, pretending he didn’t just allow himself to be ordered around by his baby brother who he supposedly hated right now. With little difficulty he broke the lock, flipping the dusty lid open. Bingo.   
“Found it, Sammy,” he said without thinking. He smacked himself internally, loathing his use of the endeared version of his brother’s name. He was doing a horrible job at being hateful right now, and he blamed it wholeheartedly on that look Sam had given him back in the car, the coffee and the scrap of shirt and the rain that never goddamn came, even though the sky was black and angry. 

“Hair?” Sam said hopefully, sitting up from his haunches and wiping his hands on the front of his jeans, like he’d touched something unsanitary. Dean held up a curl of strawberry blonde hair, cringing a little. “Yeah, but not Madeline Alberts...” He shrugged, swiping some papers from Richard’s desk to clear a space, where he emptied the contents of the cigar box. A handful of photos fell out, each depicting the smiling face of a teenage girl...a plump blonde, a young hispanic girl wearing a school uniform, a gangly looking redhead. And among all of them, Madeline Alberts sitting at the back of a classroom, head bent over her desk and lengthy black tresses falling across her brow. 

“Well I’ll be damned...” Dean breathed, tugging a lock of that same bottle black free from the coiled chain of a necklace, which matched one the redhead was wearing in her photo. There were other items too, a class ring, a wadded up pair of blood-spotted panties. He held the hair between thumb and forefinger, peering at it. He was just about to tell Sam that in addition to Madeline Albert’s remains, they should really burn this whole box, seeing as nothing good could come out of it. It was giving him the heebie jeebies just to be touching the items inside of it. 

His thought process was interrupted, however, by the unmistakable slam of a screen door on its hinges from downstairs. He and Sam froze, eyes meeting in tacit panic as they tossed the evidence back in the cigar box, hightailing it to the closet seeing as it probably wasn’t in their best interest to jump from a second story window. 

Standing in the close, hot air of a teenage boy’s stinking closet, Dean was painfully aware of his body in relation to his brother’s. Underneath the unwashed sock and adolescent reek he could smell Sam distinctly, standing too close to him. There was the soap they bought because it was cheapest, the coffee on his breath, the nerve-sweat. The _Sam_ smell that existed even under all those things they shared, that set them apart even though they had the same life and the same blood. It made Dean slightly dizzy, and his breath caught horribly, making him want to push Sam up against the wall and press mouth to throat and punish him, sucking mark after mark of color into the skin there. Dean deeply resented that even when he hated Sam, he wanted him. 

“Shit...” Sam hissed, clutching the box tight in one hand, the other moving instinctually to flatten against Dean’s chest. It was more of a warning than anything, telling Dean to keep his mouth shut and don’t do anything stupid. Dean’s heart pounded under his brother’s palm. They listened as Richard came to clunk noisily around the room, tossing a backpack onto the weak-springed bed, sighing noisily and kicking shoes off. The Winchesters held their breath, waiting for Richard Campbell to leave the room, providing them with an escape.

Unfortunately, Dean didn’t have to anything stupid to give them away because the EMF reader stashed in Sam’s back pocket suddenly went haywire, beeping with alarming intensity, signaling the arrival of none other than Madeline Alberts’ pissed-ff spirit, undoubtably coming to off the last of her attackers. Sam and Dean’s eyes met in understanding, and as Richard Campbell threw his closet door open to see whatever was making that awful sound, Dean decked him in the face, knuckles stinging with the impact. 

Richard dropped to the carpet like a sack of dismembered body parts, limbs helter-skelter on the floor, meaty body thumping at he collapsed at the mercy of Dean’s fist. Sam stared at the teenager for a moment, shocked that Dean would punch a kid’s lights out like that. Then he recovered, heaving the boy to his feet as he sputtered, coughing through the blood that dripped from his newly broken nose into his mouth. Richard’s eyes were blinking wide and blue through the initial shock, but Sam clapped one of his impressive hands across the kid’s mouth as soon as he was on his feet, gaze dark and flashing. “Don’t scream, or you’ll die,” Sam warned, voice gruff and low in this way that it got when he meant business. 

Pistol held up defensively, Dean circled the room, pulse still quick with adrenaline and the frantic whirring and beeping of the EMF reader. Once Sam was throughly convinced Richard wasn’t going to do anything stupid and run down the stairs sobbing to his mommy, he dropped him to a boneless pile of limbs on the carpet, joining his brother on the defense. Lights were flickering, the air was suddenly cold and clammy, like an evening out at sea. The Campbell boy scrambled backwards until his spine was pressed against the frame of his bed, a high pitched stream of words falling from his blood-smeared mouth. 

“Who are you...why do you...fucking hell, why are the lights...” he stuttered, and Dean felt himself be momentarily thrilled that this stupid punk-ass was afraid of something, just like he was the something girls in West Hazleton were afraid of. 

“Shut your trap kid,” Dean snarled. Sam was fumbling through his emergency duffel bag, grabbing for the lighter fluid and dime store lighter, eager to torch the cigar box and all the memories and fear and fury it held. He wasn’t moving fast enough though, and without warning, Madeline’s flickering, dark form materialized in the room, tangled hair hanging over her shoulders as she bore down on Richard Campbell’s slumped body. Contrary to Sam’s advice, Richard screamed a hysterical, childlike scream. Without missing a beat Dean fired a round of rock salt into Madeline’s slender back, and she dissipated in a bust of hazy, soot colored smoke. 

Richard Campbell was crying openly now, fat salty tears streaking trails across his ruddy cheeks and trying to choke out a “what was that thing?” but Sam didn’t give a shit and bellowed, “Richard, get down the stairs and we’ll take care of her.” He had no time for tears and terror. An overwhelming, internal _no_ seared across Dean’s brain and he found himself staring at Sam incredulously, Sam who was trying to flick his lighter to life and cursing. 

“The fuck, Sam?” Dean barked, tossing judgmental daggers in his brother’s direction.   
“What?!” Sam shot back, chestnut hair sticking to the sweat beading on his brow. His eyes were crazed with the hunt, pupils blown hugs and black from adrenaline. 

“We’re just gonna torch her and let this kid get away with raping her?” He asked, baffled. The kid in question’s gaze was volleying between the brothers, lower lip trembling with terror which rooted him to the floor. “He’s the monster, not her,” He said, raking a nervous hand through his hair. Sam cocked his head at him, suspicious. 

“Dean, she’s killed three high schoolers,” He argued, but his hand was still poised above the cigar box, flame of the lighter wavering uncertainly. “And he’s just a teenager...” he added, his forever soft-spot for people-who-can-change flaring up like a bad rash. “He might sort his shit out.” 

“Yeah, he’s a _rapist_ teenager” Dean said through his teeth, weird streak of sometimes, often-skewed morality making itself visible. No matter what happened and who ended up dead, both Sam and Dean tried to do their work for justice’s sake. But with monsters, sometimes it was hard to tell where the true blame lay. 

Richard Campbell was paralyzed during the entirety of their frantic debate, still pressed against his bed frame blubbering like a little kid whose balloon just got popped, his ice cream just up-ended in the sand courtesy of the schoolyard bully. As Sam deliberated setting the lighter fluid-doused box on fire for good, Madeline reappeared, the room resounding with a electric sounding crack as she made her presence known. The flame on the lighter blew out in a wisp of smoke; Richard screamed bloody murder again, scooting backwards on his ass as she bore down on him, and Dean watched Sam frantically try to light the box with the stupid, cheap ass lighter. He looked frantically over his shoulder at Dean, barking, “We can’t play God, Dean.” 

Dean knew his brother was right, no matter how much Richard Campbell deserved it. In a grudging instant Dean was on his knees next to Sam, ripping the lighter from his hand and trying to get it to work. “Gimme that,” He mumbled, glancing over his shoulder only to witness Madeline Alberts zeroing in on the kid’s junk with a claw-like hand. 

“Oh shit, is she going to...” He started to say, but the statement became futile because she _was_. She was heading for the soft spot, tightening a furious fist around Richard Campbell’s family jewels and twisting, squeezing, until Sam and Dean both looked away with expressions of wrought up horror on their faces, the lighter useless and broken in Dean’s fist. Campbell’s scream turned animal before is dwindled to a sick sounding and wet gurgle, which followed the hideous sound of something popping, and spraying the adjacent wall with a crest of blood and unused jizz. 

“Mother...fucker....” Sam swore, daring to cut his eyes back to the scene of Richard Campbell’s untimely albeit well deserved castration. He now knew exactly what the articles meant by the “grisly and gruesome” nature of the murders, now. 

“Well they picked the wrong girl to piss off...” Was the last thing Dean said before Madeline Albert’s dark clad form turned on them both, covering too much space in too little time, jerkily advancing in on them in that erie, too-quick way spirits often did. She focused her dark, heavy lidded and vengeance-bright gaze on Sam first. Maybe because he was bigger, even though Dean was the dick holding the lighter, she focused on him. Dean wasn’t sure, but before he knew it his blood was icing over because Madeline’s small, seemingly weak form had thrown Sam against the nearest vertical surface, delicate white hand tightening menacingly between his brother’s legs, preparing to rip his dick off in much the same fashion as she did Richard Campbell’s. 

Dean rarely froze up in the face of evil. He could empty a cartridge or two in any sonofabitch’s face without a second thought on most days, it was how he was taught, how he was _raised._ But now, for the second time in three days, he was balking behind the trigger. Dean felt frozen on the spot and crippled by some internal hangup, eyes wide and glassy as he watched his brother lose his balls to some crazed, dead goth chick. It was not a good place to be, and he realized this with a raw, visceral jolt and came to his senses, blowing Madeline away momentarily with three rapid-fire rounds of rocksalt. They left a powdery white residue smoking on Sam’s huge, cowering body, and Dean immediately rushed over to brush him off. 

“Christ, Dean,” Sam mumbled, shaking but trying to pass it off like he wasn’t. The cigar box and its contents had fallen from his hand at Madeline’s impact, and he scrambled to gather them in a pile on the carpet, dousing the evidence with a few more slops of lighter fluid before striking up a flame with a more reliable box of matches Dean found in his pocket. The photos were just beginning curl with the heat when she came back. 

The pile smoked for a nanosecond before it burst into tiny, frantic hot flames, orange and red licking desperately around the faces of the girls which smoldered to a dingy, spilt-oil black. The air smelled sharp and foul with the scent of burning hair. Sam and Dean watched it burn, and when Madeline Albert’s specter materialized a final time, she was wailing and partially burnt, shoulder, face, and shins falling away to glowing embers and staining the carpet a dusky charcoal black. Dean shook his head, watching as one million tiny fragments of ash sprinkled earth-ward. 

“Goddamn vengeful spirits. That’s the thing about those bitches, they start by offing the rapists who deserve it, but then they just keep killing,” He mumbled, hauling Sam to his feet, still shaken up by the close call. More than he would have liked to admit, actually. 

There were too many close calls. Every time Sam nearly died (which was fairly frequent occurrence) Dean ranged from being mildly disturbed, to not knowing what to do with himself. He remembered punching walls, nearly crashing the car, losing his vision, or otherwise falling the fuck apart during the times in which he was forced to fathom a world where he didn’t have Sam, all the calls that were too close. For all of Sam’s shortcomings, Dean needed him like he needed air, and had literally given a lifetime in hell for one more year with his brother. This made it all the more unbearable when their profession deposited Sam in the way of danger essentially every day, and it was just one close call after another. 

Instead of making Dean sentimental, it made him angry as hell. Watching Sam nearly get torn up made Dean want to tear him up himself, ripping limp from limb with his teeth he needed him so badly. He knew that technically Sam’s near death experiences weren’t Sam’s fault, and Dean himself got into sticky situations every other day too, but none of that stopped Dean from getting fucking furious. He heaved Sam up too forcefully, glaring at him with narrowed, flashing eyes.   
“Jesus Sam, get your junk ripped off, why don’t you,” he barked, voice the consistency of gravel. Sam wrenched his arm away, brushing salt and ashes from where it clung to the flannel of his shirt. 

“You’re one to talk, freezing up behind the trigger,” Sam said coldly, already stalking down the stairs. This just made Dean even angrier and he tore after him, forgetting about the mud on the linoleum he tracked in. After all, Mrs. Campbell had more house cleaning issues to worry about, between her son’s corpse and the minor fire that left that pile of ash and coal on his carpet. 

Once outside, Dean’s fever-hot skin was met with the balmy far apart droplets of a rain just beginning. By the time they got to the car his hands were slick and cold, an icy, horizontal downpour painting the window in sheets of dirty water.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wincest occurs in this chapter. Monumental for me, squicky for others, so just a warning. I also promise that I will eventually go into Davey and Jade's past breakup thing, just not now.

There are things that just shouldn’t get wet. Like cats, that became disgruntled and pissed off. Or Gremlins, which transformed from cute, fuzzy little Gizmos to homicidal ugly green lizard monsters. Or Jade, whose water exposure symptoms seemed to be a combination of the two aforementioned examples. He was currently standing outside in the pouring rain, holding a plastic bag over his head to deflect the downpour, but to little avail. “Pouring” in California could be dealt with using a plastic-bag-rain-slicker, but New York was an entirely different story, and Jade might as well have just jumped in the Hudson Bay or something, because his sweater was clinging to him and it was freezing. 

Still, it had to be better that being inside the motel room with Davey, who had been rampaging all day with teeth bared and biceps flexed, always one dirty word or fiery glare away from a fight. Jade couldn’t think of a single thing he’d done wrong enough to warrant this treatment, but with Davey he didn’t always have to do anything wrong. He had done one very huge thing wrong four years ago, and he was still paying for it. Jade figured that the gravity of the mistake warranted this kind of punishment, however, and he knew upon returning to Davey it would be like this. Four years down the road, even. And he had to deal with that, if he still wanted to stay.

He didn’t have to stand in the room and take it, however. Hence the night, the frigid sleetish rain that was soaking him, making his clothes heavy and clinging like he was wearing a suit of ice. His skinny arms did nothing to protect him from the wet, so he gave up on trying to hug his own body and let himself shiver violently, teeth clattering together like one of those stupid monkeys with the cymbals. Those things always scared the shit out of him, after reading that Steven King story about the toy monkey that started clapping its cymbals before someone died. Now Jade couldn’t let his teeth chatter without thinking about death, and its potential proximity. It was stupid, but he couldn’t shake an association once he thought of it. 

He glanced at the dark window of his motel room, the curtains drawn tight against the battering rain. Davey was somewhere inside there, sulking, stalking around. Doing the things crazy people did when they were upset, typing up furious pages of psycho inner monologue or whatever. If he was home he’d purge his closet, fix the television, clean the entire kitchen and rearrange all the furniture in the living room. Always something productive, though, since Jade broke him of his destructive habits. 

Art was the difference between genius and insanity, and Davey generated enough art to fill a museum, enough electricity to provide a city with light and running water for days. That was the Davey other people saw, the art and the light and the power generator, inspiring and burning blindingly bright. He was a genius from the outside, but Jade was the poor fool who got to swallow his insanity in bitter mouthfuls, the one who got locked out in the rain. 

Though it wasn’t exactly like Davey forced him out here. He _had_ gone on his own accord. It got to the point with Davey that he just didn’t want to fight anymore, because it drained him until he had nothing constructive to say. If you asked Jade, he would say that his childhood had been fairly happy, average if anything. Regardless, his early memories held lots of fights, the kinds of fights where drinking glasses shattered against opposite walls and the air smelled like spilled beer. Fights when both parents screamed at each other, and no one backed down. 

That wasn’t how fights worked with Davey. With Davey it was all words and underhanded jabs and subtle manipulation, these digging nuances that made Jade actually believe this whole thing really was all his fault. With Davey, Jade couldn’t even leave the room, or scream, or throw something because the guy blocked the door, all of his small but menacing frame preventing Jade from running away. Before that year when Jade fucked everything up, their fights were more like therapy sessions, where no one raised their voice and everyone got to explain how he felt. They cried and said, “I understand where you’re coming from, but let me tell you my side of things,” to each other. 

This didn’t work for Jade. He needed validation, he needed to know Davey loved him enough to scream at him, to throw a drinking glass, to hurt him. That was all Jade had learned about love, after all. 

Things were different now. Before they were together, and then they weren’t. Now they were somewhere in between, and it changed their fights, made them into something Jade couldn’t define or explain or stomach on most days. They were something that came and went as steady and reliable as the tides or the cycles of the moon. Unprovoked, consistent, but always passing. Jade just had to wait them out. 

He was unsettled, and not just because he was soaking wet in a motel parking lot in New York, but because Davey let him come out here without even turning around, looking over his shoulder in warning. Before Davey blocked the door and begged and threatened, but now he just let Jade go, eyes more sad than anything, this knowing misery that said, _Of course you’d run, you always do._

Inside the motel room, Davey was rampaging, drawing and crossing and erasing and leaping over the fine line between genius and insanity. And still Jade stayed outside shivering when the sound of the water-swollen door could be heard scuffing out of the jamb, Davey’s voice over the din of clattering water. “Jade, you’re being ridiculous. Come out of the rain before you get sick and die,” Davey asked, voice sharp and condescending. 

Jade whipped around, eyes two slits of light in the heavy wet-black surrounding him. Davey’s silhouette was blocking the door, looking thin and tired and sagging, a scarecrow who lost half his straw in the storm. Jade thought about obeying, and taking those few fatal steps in his direction, pushing his hand through Davey’s hair and placing the pad of his thumb at the corner of his mouth. The delicate balance would hang there for a moment, Jade soaking wet and Davey alive and warm and furious, playing a game Jade would inevitably lose, because he lost already.

He thought about it, but instead shook his head. “I’m fine out here,” He shouted weakly over the rain to Davey, who visibly bristled at his voice, standing there for a few more loaded heartbeats. There was venom in his voice when he said, “suit yourself.” 

Jade sighed, flinching as the door slammed, and Davey was the one who left him this time. 

~*~

Judging by the way Dean was hunkered down over the steering wheel like this twisted, brooding corpse, Sam could tell tonight was not going to be a good night. His brother’s eyes hadn’t left the road, squinting menacingly out at the rain-slicked interstate with his teeth gritted and grinding. There was a nasty scrape on Sam’s hip from climbing through the window of all things, but aside from that barely bleeding abrasion, Sam bore no evidence of his quick squabble with the now laid to rest Madeline Alberts. He kept reminding Dean of this, but Dean wouldn’t have any of it. 

“I’m fine,” Sam stressed for the thousandth time since they left Wast Hazleton. Dean didn’t respond, just flattened the gas pedal a little more fiercely and gazed out ahead of the windshield, color climbing from his collar, touching along his throat, the tops of his ears. Sam’s hands were freezing from the rain and he wanted to press his knuckles against the warm skin there on his brother’s pulse like he used to, back when it was second nature. Now he stopped himself, hand poised between them in the air, hesitant and caged like a pet store parakeet with its wings cut. The hand dropped to his lap, and Sam heard a stifled, wounded noise escape his brother’s throat unintentionally. 

They stopped at a gas station somewhere near Wilkes Barre, and Dean slammed out of the door and inside without consulting Sam, who sat dejectedly shotgun, watching the water ripple down the window to his right. Dean came back minutes later, gripping a bottle of Jim Beam around the neck, knuckles looking stony and silver in the grey light. Sam figured it would be one of those nights when Dean ignored him completely in favor of Jim Beam or Jack Daniels or whoever, sitting sullen and long-faced in the corner of the motel room. Sam found it pretty infantile but he knew better than to try and butt his way into that affair. 

As Dean started the engine up again and backed out of the parking lot, Sam rubbed thoughtfully at a hefty, gnarled white scar on his forearm from a Black Dog they’d wasted in Arizona. There was the chupacabra scar on his left shin, the whorled raised claw marks from some minor werewolf cousin, the bullet wound that healed bad on his thigh from a stupid backwoods sheriff who didn’t understand they were trying to save his town from a pissed of Pagan demigod. 

And those were just the big ones, Sam’s body was a maze of old, mostly minor injuries and a canvas stretched and ready-made for new ones, a map of all the places he’d been and all the monsters he’d hunted and the ones that had almost done him in. And right in the center of Sam’s back was the mark left by the thing that did kill him. The one that really ruined Dean like this, the one that made each of the others so ugly, too. 

Sam allowed himself to glance briefly at Dean’s hard, angled profile sometime after they crossed the state line, both resenting and understanding that sometimes it wasn’t the big things that set him off. Nine out of ten hunts one of them ended up flat on their back with some drooling monster’s jaws snapping at their neck, or thrown against the wall with a few cracked ribs. It was the nature of the job, and they both learned to deal with seeing the other almost die on a near-daily basis. There were narrow escapes, and then there were downright miracles. Sam could never predict which ones Dean would lose his shit over, whether it would be one of those _I can’t believe you survived that_ moments, or a salt-and-burn vengeful spirit that got just a little out of hand. 

In short, Sam didn’t think the narrow escape from Madeline Alberts quite warranted Dean’s silent treatment and booze purchase and too-fast driving in the pouring rain, but then again Sam had witnessed stranger things. 

He thought of all the times he had seen Dean nearly get eaten or pummeled or broken in half by something evil. The minor, casual times where Dean just got up and brushed himself off after the fact were oftentimes the most disturbing, the events that had Sam sitting bolt upright in the middle of the night, startled sweating out of a nightmare where his own wide palm was the only thing holding Dean’s insides in. Those were the ones that had him shaking for hours afterwards, heart hammering away a hysteric, frenzied mantra of _still alive still alive still alive._

Like anyone, Sam romanticized his past when things were simpler, easier. The truth of the matter was that life hadn’t been easy or simple for Sam Winchester as long as he had memories, but still. When Sam first started hunting with Dean again, he longed for the days before Stanford when his biggest issue was rebelling against a controlling father, not relearning to hunt, mourning a dead girlfriend, and chasing a trail of isolated clues and coordinates in efforts to find his only remaining family. But later when he was tracking Yellow Eyes, or trying to save Dean from hell, he looked back on those days with a dull, aching, nostalgic desire. 

Now he would take any of that over now. At least during all of those miserable years of finding Dad, hunting Azaezel, or hunting Lilith, at least then there was no oncoming apocalypse, no heaven or hell. Sam thought that the gravity of the World Ending was what he wanted to escape, but part of him knew that what he longed for was when Dean loved him. None of that shit seemed to matter as much when Dean was willing to die for him, when it was just he and his brother against the world. 

But things changed after Hell and Sam had to deal with that. It was the way the world worked. Still, regardless of how tough Dean was to deal with on these kinds of days, it was a reassuring breed of reminder that he did on some level care. Then Sam’s potential death still made Dean surly and broken, fingers gripped too tight on the wheel of the Impala as he drove her hard and fast away from Pennsylvania. 

It was in those days when their biggest issue was the Yellow Eyed Demon that Sam and Dean first touched. Sam remembered it in startling detail, every sense magnified and in technicolor, the smell and taste and feel of the memory so well worn it was like a favorite shirt, the thing Sam thought about before bed every night to lull himself to sleep for months, the thing he brought to the shower with him. It was after a particularly close call with Gordon, who was a perfect example of all the ways a hunter could go wrong if he were in the game too many years. Gordon was crazed and tailing Sam, and for what must have been a few terrifying minutes, he tricked Dean into believing Sam had died, for real this time. 

Dean got drunk and crossed a line that night, and Sam remembered every second of it, but to this day wondered if his brother did. The memory used to be a rich, comforting thing, but now it made Sam ache. Made him want to give up. He swallowed, hard.

When they made it back to New York the rain had let up considerably, now worn to a misty, grey drizzle. Sam shucked his damp, ashy flannel once they were locked in the hotel room, trading it for a dry albeit still dirty old tee shirt of his, one with a tear in the hem he liked to hook his thumb through when he was nervous. Dean didn’t bother changing or even taking his shoes off, merely stalked over to the ratty easy chair the motel room provide, collapsed in it, and sighed heavily. Sam slunk unobtrusively to the bathroom to splash water across his face, feeling the sooty-grit of a vengeful spirit case settled into the smallest creases of his skin. When he came back, Dean was already swirling another golden-brown mouthful around in a shot glass, the Jim Beam cracked open and no longer full. 

“Already?” Sam said quietly.

“Fuck off, Sam,” Dean’s voice was dark, and he swallowed the shot without shuddering, hardened by years of hard liquor and a vacation in hell. Sam shut up, deciding it was in his best interest to try and sleep, because watching Dean and Dean’s wounds get stewed in alcohol would only bring more nightmares. 

~*~

Jade went back into the motel room when he saw the Impala pulling into the tiny, truck-inhabited motel parking lot. Despite thinking the Winchester brothers were assholes, Jade still didn’t want them to see him standing lamely in the rain outside his room while Davey was warm and dry inside. He tried to enter as quietly as possible, clinging to some completely irrational hope that Davey had fallen asleep. Except Davey never slept, not even when he was on tour and sick and _needed_ to sleep if he wanted to survive. Of course, the second Jade cracked the door open Davey’s form shifted in bed, rolling over to face Jade, eyes glinting like mercury in the shadowed room. 

“Back?” He murmured, voice unreadably soft. He looked mussed and sleepy and warm, something Jade (who was fucking numb and shivering) could curl up into. Jade longed for it, longed for the familiar feel of Davey’ s strong arms holding him down or holding him up, the soft, cupid’s bow shape of his mouth relearning its way around the cords in Jade’s neck. Instead he stood dripping, stomach churning every time a bone-deep shudder ran through his skinny body. 

“Well?” Davey said again, too tired sounding to even attempt a biting edge. 

“I’m cold,” Jade sighed, thinking it was neutral enough. He watched, standing still and guarded as Davey pulled himself up, disentangling limbs from sheets which rustled against him, and walked to Jade. He flinched when Davey’s warm hands came to rest on his cheeks, thumbs brushing at the exhausted bags under his eyes. Spooked, Jade’s eyes flitted frantically to hold Davey’s, and then he was falling headlong into him and they were kissing, wet and rain slicked. Davey held him in place, hands sure and solid on Jade’s chilled and clammy skin, the comforting drag of his mouth the warmest thing Jade had ever felt. 

There was something melting between Jade’s lungs, a slowly spreading knowledge that things were going to be okay, the world was ending but Davey was kissing him, cradling his cheeks and pushing his tongue gently between the chattering edges of Jade’s teeth. “I’m sorry,” Jade said dumbly when Davey pulled away, eyes huge and sad and dark. He wasn’t sure what he was sorry about, but as Davey slid his fingers gently under the hem of his wet sweater and pulled it up, he knew he was sorry. 

“I’m sorry too,” Davey half mumbled and Jade stilled under his touch, skeptical. Davey was never the type to apologize, even when clearly in the wrong. He would defend himself long after the argument dissipated. 

“You are?” Jade asked through the rattling of teeth, expecting a snarky comment. This would be especially low seeing as Davey’s kisses usually meant the water under the bridge was, for now, calm as glass. But to Jade’s surprise Davey’s eyes were sharp with something like fear, narrowed and bright, mouth a pursed flat line. His hands seemed worried and frantic on Jade’s stomach, the fingertips tapping, catching on the damp of his skin. 

“Are you...do you...do you hate me for killing that person? It wasn’t really a person,not that that _matters_ and I still...I did it for you. For us. I. I didn’t think...” the words fell from Davey like a can of water suddenly overturned, spilling across the floor cold and wet and ever expanding. There was a rushed quality to it, like he had to get everything out right now or Jade wouldn’t understand. It scared Jade to hear Davey so ineloquent and inarticulate, words stumbling like a drunk, someone with his shoes untied.

It must have been something that was really eating him up from the inside out to fuck his words up like that. Davey always formulated his sentences fully before saying them. If he didn’t have everything worked out in his head, he would repeat “I don’t know” over and over again until he did. Why are you angry, Dave? I don’t know. What did I do, Dave? I don’t know. How can I fix it? I don’t know. What hurts? I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. Jade’s heart suddenly clenched, getting it now, getting Davey. He gripped his forearms, big round eyes locked on Davey’s, which were blown blacker than black in the low light, terrified and feral like a rat backed into a trap, teeth bared. 

“Dave,” Jade said gently, letting it hang in the air. It meant, I get you. I’m not mad at you. It wasn’t your fault. 

“I didn’t...” Davey struggled around the word, throat bobbing and brows arched high and nervous. 

“Dave I know. I know it all, and it’s okay. I would have done the same thing,” Jade was so tired all of the sudden, aching and collapsable under the retained rainwater, the fight, the egg shells he was destined to walk upon forever if he stayed with Davey. Without condoning it, Jade’s body reacted, one of his hands rising to cup the cool, hollowed curve of Davey’s cheek, rough and aged and kissable. He felt Davey inhale shakily, one deep breath. 

“Okay. okay,” he said, trying to reassure himself, shaking subtly even though Jade was the wet one, the one soaked through to the bone. Jade shucked off his wet undershirt, kicked off his jeans, and then reached across that bridge with the storm silently surging beneath it and held Davey against his chest, riding the shuddering, nervous breaths out like an ebbing tide. 

“You’re okay,” he said, voice so soft it’s almost inaudible. He worried something might break if he was any louder. 

“I’m fucked up,” Davey mumbled back, into the solidity of Jade’s shoulder. They stood like that, swaying slightly, Jade dripping on the carpet. He imagined a puddle forming around them, a nucleus in the midst of other swirling cell parts, the central valley of CA, uninfected. “You’ve always been fucked up,”Jade told him in response, smiling gently. Davey huffed against him, an overwhelmed sound. 

“Yeah, I know. You left” He whispered, the quietest thing. Jade almost missed it, _wanted_ to miss it, but he could tell by the anxious, cold swoop in his lower stomach that Davey said it. Meant it. Was terrified by it. He tilted Davey’s head backwards, long fingers curled and cupping his ear, thumb pressed in the slight cleft of his chin. “I came back,” he told him, and Davey closed his eyes because had nothing to say to that. 

 

~*~

Sam laid stock still in bed, as solid and straight as man in his grave. He pretended to sleep, letting his breaths come and go in even rhythm. Hyper aware of Dean’s surly presence brooding in the corner, boots kicked up on the coffee table while he half watched some bullshit game show on TV, Sam laid in bed calculating, waiting for the statically buzzing announcer’s voice to shut off so he could relax. Go to bed for real with Dean in the other bed next to him like always, heavy and drunk while he room spun around them both.

That’s not the way it went down, though. 

When Dean killed the TV, he sat in the easy chair for a long time, taking a final drink perhaps. Sam waited for the familiar sound of his brother making his way across a floor strewn with their belongings, the creak of a bed under Dean’s huge, staggering body. The sound of him huffing exhaustedly, then the heavy sleep breaths, the smell of liquor on the air. Instead when Dean stood up he moved towards Sam’s bed, footsteps heavy and clumsy and that biting, acrid smell above Sam instead. Sam’s eyes snapped open to witness his brother dropping to the vacant spot beside Sam, one big, sweat-damp palm immediately rising to card roughly through Sam’s hair, snagging. He lost his breath, because it had been forever since Dean touched him like this. 

It was Sam’s world that spun then, though Dean was the drunk one. His mind stumbled, caught on a million hard places like a swab of silk being dragged against a cheese grater, ripping and pulling and tearing. Before Sam could stop himself he was shying away from it, voice catching and ready to run from him, ready to blurt “What the fuck are you _doing_?” But the look in Dean’s eyes stops him dead. The whiskey had melted every hardened, guarded part of Dean away, leaving that ripped silk, that scrap of Sam’s shirt. Well worn and thin and terrified, pupils wide and black, rimmed with a thin ring of the greenest green and Sam choked on his words, swallowing them like busted glass, throat bleeding as he relented. “You...” He breathed, not sure what he meant. And then he let Dean kiss him, and kiss him, and push him down hard into the bed, hot wet palms raking hard and solid and burning all over his jaw. 

“Sam-- _Sammy_ ,” Dean ground out, voice thin and wheezy and desperate. Sam could feel Dean’s hard-on pushing against his thigh, and he slid his hand up the back of his boxer shorts without thinking, hot skin on hot skin, blinding and white and searing. He knew he should be resisting or at least questioning Dean’s motives, but the taste of his brother, bitter and sour like Jim Beam and sorrow made him dizzy. He stopped thinking all together sometime after Dean started rubbing against him, quick wanton bucks of his hips, locking into Sam’s, and he had his hands everywhere, begging “I just need to _feel_ you, Sammy.” Sam’s mind was ripped open by the gravel and timber in his brother’s voice, eyes shades darker, skin flushed. He thrusted back up into him, head thrown back and throat extended. 

They moved together like that easily, like all of Dean’s time in hell was forgotten, and Sam’s year spend addicted no longer mattered. Sam could believe this with the way Dean’s mouth latched onto his pulse, sucking blood to the surface with the deliberate intention. Dean’s teeth dug into him, clumsy and scraping, his kisses too cloying and wet. His body was too heavy, the thrusts erratic and frantic and Sam couldn’t fucking breathe under it, but he never could, he never was supposed to. This was how it was supposed to be, crushed lungs and rough palms. Dean can’t breathe either by the sound of it, dizzying gasps of air escaping him in ragged bursts ripped from deep inside his chest, the sound of Sam’s brother getting close to coming between them.

Almost as quickly as it started it was over, Dean gripping Sam’s shoulders as he came fast and hard and without warning, a low, crushed sounding groan hot and wet against Sam’s neck as Dean tensed above him, body slung low and jerking. Sam could have come with the mere motion of Dean losing his grip, the strangled gasp, the jut of his jaw digging into Sam’s pulse. He aligned himself under his brother’s heavy, shaking body, huge hands kneading roughly at the muscles stretched and moving across his back, on either side of his spine. Sam came then, came because of the heavy grinding but mostly because of the smell of his brother overwhelming him, booze and leather and sweat and blood and fire. It hit him in the gut, the smell of Dean after hell, Dean with a hint of sulfur and tears under all of those scalding, hot to the touch memories of closed windows and motel sheets. When he came he forced his eyes open, just so he could look at the broken, parted shape of his brother’s mouth formed loose and drooling over how own name.

Sam was still gasping with the force of his orgasm when Dean heaved himself off his body, stumbling to the opposite bed without looking back at his brother, who was sprawled and sweating on top of the covers. Sam felt stuck to them, heavy and sunken like a ship full of cannon balls, just wrecked by the worst and best kind of storm.

“Dean--” Sam managed to choke out between gasps, and Dean did turn then, lips swollen and eyes painfully green. Sam felt especially horrible then as Dean loomed over him, drunk and tired and clumsy. Still Sam was the ruined one, boxers wet with a spreading spot of their combined come, smeared and sticky on quaking thighs.

“Don’t you dare die on me,” Dean slurred, voice ripped and raw and hoarse. It sounds like the first time he swallowed after sucking Sam off, that choking salty sore-throat sound that Sam used to love, that used to make him feel proud. Like he owned something. And then Dean turned away officially this time, gaze dark, face old. Sam laid on the bed straight and still like a man in his grave, newly drunk with the smell of too much whiskey and Dean’s spit still drying on his neck. It was a long time before he started breathing normally again. It was an even longer time before he managed to fall into uneasy sleep.


	10. Chapter 10

The next morning, Dean wouldn’t get out of bed. He muttered to Sam it was a hang over and told him to leave him alone, but Sam knew better. This was in reaction to what they’d done, what they’d stopped doing after Hell that Sam still longed for every lonely aching second he looked at the line of his brother’s jaw, the stretch of his neck soaking the collar of his shirt in sweat as he dig a grave. He knew from prior experience concerning Dean freaking out that this “hangover” was more than just too much whiskey. Sam’s stomach was still in knots, bags under his eyes indicating a night of restless tosses of a sore body in a too small, too empty bed. If Sam was still messed up over it, Dean had a whole score of problems in addition to a hang over. Dean always took these things harder than Sam did, probably because he was the big brother, and he’d been conditioned his whole life to bear the most weight. 

Sam decided he could not be in this dark, close room with the faint smell of sex, booze, and sweat still lingering in his sheets a second longer. He heaved himself out of bed and got dressed, brushing his teeth with Dean’s toothbrush in the bathroom, half to spite him, half to have something of Dean in his mouth. Anything to hold onto. Sam would have felt stupid if the act wasn’t so subconscious he didn’t even realize he was doing it. 

He was out the door and walking before he had time to figure out what his mission was, and he let his feet take him where they needed to go. This ended up being Davey and Jade’s door, of all places. He was sort of surprised and sort of not, seeing as he and Dean rarely had company on their hunts, and spent almost no time at all with anyone else. It was natural for Sam to gravitate towards Davey and Jade because they were humans and he craved human contact, even if they weren’t exactly the type he could get buddy-buddy with. Regardless, he rapped his knuckles against their door, ears met with the rustling sounds of people still in bed. It was Jade who greeted him, eyes heavy and looking exceptionally old. 

“Hullo...you need something?” He said dazedly, and Sam looked passed him, into their room, where Davey was rolling over in the same bed Jade had gotten out of. It was the one with the rumpled sheets, the other remaining tightly made with the covers unturned. It shouldn’t have startled him but it did, a ice water feeling sloshing over him like a carnival Dunk Tank. He swallowed audibly, caught off guard, imaged of Davey and Jade not fucking or anything, just cuddling and touching and holding each other. Somehow this was more uncomfortable for him to picture than anything filthy.

“Get dressed,” he said, recovering in record time. “Davey too.” He’d pocketed the keys back in the room and he fingered them comfortingly in his pocket. 

“What? Why? Is everything okay?” Jade said, suddenly alert and panicked. He looked nervously over at his shoulder, at Davey rooting around in the bed trying to find a comfortable position, groaning at the invasive light from the door like something infant and blind. 

“Everything’s fine. Dean’s hungover though, so we won’t be able to get back onto the road until this evening, most likely,” Sam said matter of factly. “Now go on, get dressed. We’re going out.” 

Jade regarded him from the door frame, awkward and with his hair sticking up in ten different directions. “Dude, what time is it?” He asked finally, once he got the sense to shut his mouth from its previous, wide-open guppy status. 

r32;“Nothing too bad. Seven am, maybe,” Sam said and almost laughed at Jade’s appalled expression. 

“Did you kill that.. that ghost thing?” He asked dumbly in response, and Sam nodded.   
“Yeah, and Dean got smashed afterwards, so I’m all fresh out of company. So you and that one get dressed, and then meet me out here in fifteen. I’m gonna teach you how to shoot a gun.” Sam said with a smile that wasn’t a smirk, but something genuine. With nothing else to do, and by the sounds of it, no choice otherwise, Jade nodded to him, shutting the door and moving towards the bed to wake Davey. 

~*~

Fifteen minutes later (which was entirely not enough time for either Davey or Jade to complete half their morning routine, namely their hair), the three men were in the Impala heading towards some unknown location, Davey half-asleep in the back, and Jade sitting an uncomfortable shotgun. He was tense and out of place, very aware of Sam’s presence in the drivers side and Davey’s vacancy. He hadn’t realized how accustomed to Davey’s body, even if it wasn’t touching his, Jade had become. It was a constant thing he could rely or lean upon, this reliable presence that was there when he was sleeping, writing, playing. Being on tour with someone meant sharing your existence and personal space with them at all times almost as much as it meant playing shows with them. 

Now it was just Sam, huge and hulking and slightly terrifying, stuffed behind the wheel with his one elbow hanging out the window, a perpetual grimace on his face. Jade could tell Sam had the kind of face that had once been handsome, but the soul behind it experienced too much pain and taxing work, and now he looked a wreck all the time, ruined and old and broken. His hand drummed on the wheel, rough, scabbed knuckles and dirty, bitten nails. Jade swallowed, ignoring how antsy he was. 

“Uh, won’t your brother be pissed that you took the car?” He asked, crossing then uncrossing his legs as he shifted uneasily. Sam’s mouth did something that could have been a smile; Jade couldn’t tell exactly read Sam the way he could read other people. It was like looking at a person through layers and layers of gravel. 

“Yeah,” Sam shrugged, nonchalant. “But in the event we don’t get back before he sleeps his hangover off, which probably won’t happen, he’ll just have to get over it.” 

“Oh.” Jade said awkwardly. He ran a hand self-consciously through his hair, eyes darting to the rearview so he could see Davey, slouched against the window. “He doesn’t seem like the ‘get over it’ type.” 

“You have no idea,” Sam said and laughed a little, averting his eyes from the road for the first time since they’d piled into the car to look at Jade. “He’s about the farthest thing from it, but this he’ll deal with. I’ve got collateral.” He spat the last sentence out bitterly but almost looked surprised at his tone. His hand jerkily moved from the wheel to close around his own throat, thoughtfully rubbing the skin there like something was missing. If Jade felt weird before, he definitely did now. 

“So, was ‘shoot a gun’ some kind of hunter metaphor, or are you actually going to teach us how to handle weapons right now?” Jade asked, trying to change the subject. Sam made an ugly sound in his throat somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. 

“No metaphors. I’m looking for a shooting range right now,” He answered, pushing his overgrown hair from his face as they rolled to a stop sign. Davey finally contributed to the conversation, his voice sounding morning-rough and congested from the backseat. “I don’t like guns.” He rasped. “I don’t want to touch a gun again.”

“Too bad, you’re a natural,” Sam said. Jade didn’t know why, but the notion that Davey had a knack for firearms irked him, but also made him strangely proud, strangely excited. As much as a pacifist, punk-rock-will-save-the-world kind of guy Davey was, Jade didn’t find the image of Davey holding a pistol and aiming it at some target on the wall all together shocking or odd. Certainly not as odd as Davey seemed to find it. Jade actually thought it was weirdly obvious or something.

“It was a lucky shot. That’s what your brother said,” Davey countered, but there was doubt coloring his words a darker shade. He knew there was something about how abnormally easy it was for him to pick up that pistol and fire it with purpose, and it wasn’t exactly something he wanted to tap into. 

“He was just threatened by the fact you saved my ass and he didn’t,” Sam explained. He paused, visibly contemplating over what he was going to say next. “He sort of, uh, has a big brother complex.” He finally decided on. Jade nodded, a sharp feeling in his chest. Both big brothers, Davey and Jade had some kind of experience with this breed of complexity in their childhood, but over the years Jade’s younger brother grew to be more of a caretaker for the band than Jade ever would be. Smith ran AFI, but also kept the band in line as people: he knew the realistic stuff, the facts, the data. Where they were playing that night and how much it cost and how to get to the hotel, manage an budget, balance a check book. He may have been years younger than Jade, but he was the one who took care of him. Took care of Davey, when he was fucked. When Jade fucked him over. 

“I have a little brother,” Jade blurted, hating how serious his voice sounded. He coughed, chewing the inside of his lip.   
“Oh yeah?” Sam answered, glancing at Jade.   
“Yeah. But the way it works out, I’m kind of more in your position. I mean, he’s the one who saves my ass all the time. Or feels like he has to. And Davey too, especially Davey. Dave would be dead if if weren’t for my brother, he goes after him every time he stage dives.” The words fell out of Jade in an awkward tumble, and his cheeks turned a shade darker. He didn’t know why he was telling this shit to Sam. It wasn’t like he was embarrassed, just swimming upstream in too cold water and Sam glared at him while he drowned, clearly disagreeing with the parallel he’d just drawn. He kept thinking about Smith, Smith at home, in California, with the rest of Jade’s family while he was here on his way to a shooting range with Dave and a stranger. It made him so anxious, feel so goddamn far away from home. 

He took a deep breath though, reminding himself he needed to keep things together because it wasn’t Davey’s job to piece him up again and again. “Sorry,” he tacked onto the end of it, big eyes pleading at Sam. “I didn’t mean to, uh, imply that you needed saving all the time. In fact you seem much older than Dean, to be honest.” 

Sam stared at him in silence for a few more moments, and then his eyes slid back onto the road as the light changed. Much to Jade’s surprise, he laughed. And it was clearly a laugh, not that weird coughing sound that could have been him clearing his throat, scoffing, barking. This was an actual, genuine laugh that followed a smile that reached Sam Winchester’s eyes. Jade kind of couldn’t believe himself. “You know, uh, he’s just kind of...kind of....”

“No, no, you’re right. Dean acts five years old half the time,” Sam said, shaking his head and lips still quirked into a crooked half-smile. “That’s just Dean. But you know, I like you. You’re funny,” Sam said, nodding decisively. 

“Really. I thought I just insulted you. Inadvertently.” Jade said stiffly, trying to flatten his hair with an open palm, pressing it to his brow. 

“Nah, you were just talking. You don’t know me, I don’t take it personally. Plus, I think you were talking more about yourself, less about me. And about your little brother, he probably needs you more than you realize, you know,” Sam’s voice was firm, one solid thing in all the softness and blurry edges of the early morning. 

“I dunno. I do need saving a lot. Not from ghosts, or anything, but still. Rabid fangirls can be pretty terrifying, only Dave needs to be rescued from them more than I do. Smith’s good at that.” Jade said, glancing in the rearview to see if Davey was listening, if Davey was going to interject that Jade shouldn’t joke about that shit because when he left, Smith saved him seriously. Smith was the only one that knew what happened, the only one who Davey could fully rely on to know the entire story. Davey’s only brother in a sense, and perhaps that was why Jade felt so sick, so nervous, so guilty about Smith in California, Smith being there for everyone while Jade figured his shit out. He swallowed, searching Davey’s downcast face before realizing he had his headphones in, and couldn’t hear a word they were saying. He let out a breath he’d been unwittingly holding. 

“Rabid fangirls?” Sam asked, breaking Jade’s reverie. He shook his head, glancing back to Sam for the first time with a sense of camaraderie rather than fear. He was huge and angry and killed things for a living, but Jade didn’t think he was so bad anymore, not with the way he was actually attempting to connect with them. 

“Yeah, fifteen year olds goths. Out for Dave’s Blood. It can get pretty gruesome.” he said dryly, back on his home turf of humor. Jade flailed when he had to discuss anything remotely serious or emotional or painful, but tell him a joke and he’d flawlessly deliver a counter attack and punchline before you could blink. This was what Jade was good at, this was where he could relate to people. Sam chuckled, shaking his head. “Sounds pretty bad.” 

“So, do you know where the shooting range is in every city, or are you just using your spidey senses?” Jade asked, wondering for the first time if Sam knew where the hell he was going.   
Sam shrugged. “Senses, I guess. I thought I’d just drive and find one. Can’t be too hard.” 

“Dude,” Jade said incredulously, pulling his his sidekick. “I can just google one in the area and then mapquest it. No problem. I have GPS, too.” He explained, already pressing buttons. Sam regarded him in awe and confusion, like he’s just spoken greek. 

“This is why you two are valuable,” he said, nodding to himself. “Cultural capital.” 

~*~

After spending an hour or so at the shooting range Jade successfully located, they established that regardless of his internal qualms and reservations about guns, Davey Havok was an absolute natural behind the trigger. It took a lot of coaxing to even get him to put the equipment on and pick the thing up, but once Sam convinced him that if any time was a moral, upstanding time to learn to defend oneself, the Apocalypse was it. He finally, (if not grudgingly) gave in, but it was a steep learning curve following his decision, and by the end of an hour he wasn’t far behind Sam in targets successfully hit. 

Needless to say, both Sam and Jade were throughly impressed. Jade wasn’t inept at it either, but he didn’t possess the natural, easy talent Davey had. Once he got over his initial hesitance, Davey was not only a quick learner but quick to change his standpoint. They were taking a break and splitting a coke between the three of them when he declared, “I’m joining the NRA.” his voice was dead serious, brows quirked up. Jade rolled his eyes at him, but Davey licked his lips, regarding Jade with solemn eyes. “Okay maybe not the NRA, but Jade, I have never been more confident about something in my life.”

“Singing?” Jade asked, trying to not think too hard about Davey’s slender white fingers gripping the weight of the gun smoothly, eyes narrowed at the target and body unflinching when he fired. It kind of blew Jade away that even after a lifetime spent with Davey, he was consistently finding new ways to be intrigued and attracted to him He shook his head, biting his lower lip while Sam smirked at the both of them in this irritatingly knowing way. 

“Well of course, performing, but come on. I’ve been the center of attention since I was five, who didn’t see that coming. But guns? Honestly? I’m good at shooting! What the fuck.” He said, in awe. He held up one hand, examining it like it might not belong to him. 

“Not just good. Phenomenal, actually,” Sam mused, slapping Davey chummily on the back in the way that made him beam, but also almost knocked him over. Sam was used to slapping Dean, who was smaller than him but still a good six feet and solid two hundred pounds. Davey’s knees buckled, but he seemed proud of himself all the same, groggy, pissed-off-morning-self abandoned. 

“Yeah, don’t let it get to his head, he already thinks he’s hot shit,” Jade grumbled, but only to give him a hard time. 

“Speaking of being hot shit, I really should skype my friends. People are worried, and I haven’t dropped a line since day before yesterday...” Davey mused aloud, hands immediately flying to his considerably sized man-bag and rummaging through it to check on his laptop. 

“There’s a coffee place with free wifi down the block,” Jade responded.

“Skype?” Sam asked, but Davey was already heading out, jamming his sunglasses on and squeezing Jade’s arm gently in a way that made Jade’s heart thunder from nerves, but nerves from force of habit and less from actual fear of Sam’s judgement. If Sam was going to judge them for anything they did personally or together, he would have already made assumptions and thrown them out based on appearances only. He figured this guy had enough skeletons in the closet he didn’t care about or notice anything about Jade’s nature. 

“You two will be okay, right? Play nice together and whatever?” Davey asked. He was wired on caffeine and adrenaline, thrilled about discovering a new talent and the heart-stopping sound of gunfire still echoing in the indoor range. Jade tried to look at him but he was too bright and fast moving, like a fucking shooting star or something. 

“We’ll be fine Dave, go address your harem,” Jade told him, turning to Sam once Davey’d left. “You’ve created a monster,” He declared, widening his eyes. Sam smiled, gaze rolling to the ceiling, mouth that crooked line again that Jade had come to realize was mirth by Sam’s standards. 

“I’ve created an asset,” Sam responded, grinning. “Hey, you wanna go get breakfast somewhere a little quieter?” He jerked his head to the side, gesturing towards the door. Jade agreed, walking down with Sam a block or two to an IHOP. They sat in a cramped booth, eating pancakes with blueberry compote Jade treated them to. 

“So...I gotta ask...harem?” Sam finally said after moments of companionable silence, filled only by the sound of thoughtful chewing. Sam had spent the wait for the food and the walk over detailing to Jade how the fight against Madeline Alberts’ ghost had gone down, and specifically how the information he and Davey had gathered helped them. After explaining what skype was, Jade had listened wide eyed and perturbed, only now realizing he was being faced with a non sequitor question. He blinked, coming to his senses. “Oh... Oh. Dave’s Harem. He has this pack of rich twenty-somethings from Orange County that worship him... they’re models and musicians and what have you, but the only real thing they have in common is that they all want to fuck him.” Jade delivered the whole thing very matter of factly, much to Sam’s confusion. 

“Wait... doesn’t that make you jealous?” Sam mumbled through a mouthful of syrupy pancakes. It was apparently the wrong thing to say, because Jade seemed taken aback, answering with a terse, defensive “Why would it?” His voice was sharp, eyes narrowed. Sam backed right off, realizing he was treading in dangerous territory. 

“You guys aren’t... oh. Okay, sorry man. I was just... I didn’t...”

“If you...” Jade started, not even knowing where he was going with it. If he what? If he told? Of he knew? If he cared? And then what, _or else?_ Jade had come a long way in four years, but old habits died hard.

“Hey, Jade. I didn’t mean anything by that. And if... just, I don’t give a fuck, okay? I don’t care,” Sam said very seriously, bringing out his old, dusty, but once upon a time well-used Concerned Citizen Face and slapping it on. His brow furrowed, eyes getting dark and wet. “Honestly. I have bigger things to worry about.” There was a moment of pregnant silence tight and crackling between them, but Jade’s face eventually softened. 

“Yeah, yeah okay.” He answered roughly, staring hard at nothing, gaze fiercely averted to his left so he didn’t have to look at Sam. He tapped his fingers on the tabletop, willing his heart and breathing to slow. Old habits died hard. He finally relaxed, eyes dropping as he sighed. “I guess I got bigger things to worry about, too, huh?” He added with a humorless laugh, eyes meeting Sam’s. Reality was a bitch sometimes. 

“I guess we all do,” Sam said solemnly, shrugging. He took a sip of his coffee, swirling the contents of his mug and setting his jaw tight. “So, how are you holding up with all of that? The apocalypse, I mean” He added awkwardly, wishing everything he drank, felt, or thought wasn’t so bitter. 

“Well, I’m not puking or crying anymore. I’d say I’m taking it all in stride.” Jade’s voice was droll, and he sat back in the booth, vinyl seat squeaking under him. He finally gave up on trying to make his hair look nice, and it was a puffy mess half concealing his one eye now, but he didn’t even care at this point. He didn’t even care that his mole was probably showing. 

“Point taken,” Sam nodded. “Davey though... don’t mind me asking, but is he human?” Sam said. He was only half-trying to be funny, but Jade seemed to think this was hilarious and was reduced to hysterics, shaking, head thrown back and throat extended. He hiccuped, and Sam waited for him to stop, mumbling an awkward, “He’s just..very...” 

“No, no I totally get it. It seems like he’s not human, right? He’s just...wow. I’ve never heard anyone phrase it quite so accurately,” Jade swallowed, shaking his head. His grin eventually faded, replaced with a solemn, flattened line. “Seriously though, he is human. More than anyone else.” 

“Could have fooled me,” Sam responded, cracking his knuckles before cutting up another portion of pancakes. Everything smelled too sweet and overwhelming, and he kept on thinking about Dean back at the motel, a sinking feeling plaguing his stomach at the reoccurring image in his head. He pushed it down, trying to keep his attention focused on Jade. 

“Well trust me, I live with him. I know it seems like he’s not being affected by all this stuff, but he is. He just deals with it differently. Doesn’t like to show or talk about how much something is fucking him up,” Jade explained, fingers resting on the rim of his coffee cup thoughtfully. 

“Sounds like someone I know,” Sam mused. His voice was gruff sounding, too low. Jade knew right away who he was talking about. “Dean?” He asked quietly. Sam nodded without looking up, pushing his pancakes around on the plate with his fork. “Yeah, Dean puts up the biggest goddamn fight when it comes to talking about things.” 

“Dave does it because he doesn’t want to seem vulnerable. I just crash and burn first, then deal with the wreckage. But he pretends that he’s not going down in the first place, you know?” Jade met Sam’s eyes when he said this, and the intensity in Sam’s gaze told him that Dean did the same thing, but he didn’t want to further explain it. Too painful, too long running, Jade assumed. “Yeah,” was all Sam said in response, nodding emphatically. “I get it.” 

“It comes across that he’s crazy though. Like you said, inhuman,” Jade chuckled, sipping his coffee and making a face, nose wrinkled. He opened another one of those tiny, plastic creamer packets, dumping it into the mug. “This shit’s too strong,” he added, ignoring that Sam’s was of course, black. 

“Yeah. He’s like the energizer bunny or something,” Sam said.  
“I know it doesn’t seem like it, but he actually has a huge, huge heart. He’s saved a lot of people,” Jade said. As soon as the words left his lips, Jade felt stupid that he’d used the phrase _saved people_ to someone like Sam. Sam who _killed_ things to save people, made it his life. Surprisingly, Sam didn’t correct him or get offensive, just nodded understandingly. 

“Again, sounds like someone I know,” He sighed, clearing his throat and regarding Jade meaningfully. Dean again, Jade figured. For a split, shockingly lucid second, it dawned on Jade that the way Sam talked about his brother was off, strange. More like the way Jade talked about Davey, not Smith. He briefly wondered if Sam and Dean Winchester were really brothers, or if they were something else. He then immediately banished the thought, thinking it was hypocritical to read something into someone’s chemistry when he resented people for doing that to him and Davey for years. He shook his head, disappointed in himself. 

“You know, for two guys who butt heads so much, Dean and Dave seem to have a lot in common,” Jade decided, absentmindedly fingering a crack he’d found in his plate. He thought of Dean and Davey, and how they both seemed to be very involved in proving themselves and their strength. Of course, in two very different ways: Dean by embodying the ultra-masculine typical male, Davey by trying to appear as if he didn’t _need_ to prove his masculinity by being androgynous. In retrospect, it seemed normal that they’d hate each other. They perceived one another as threats to their own concepts of themselves and their strength. 

“You know, Dean would hate to hear that, but you’re absolutely right,” Sam agreed. 

“Dave would hate to hear it, too.” Jade laughed a little, and he and Sam sat together quietly finishing their coffee, both men of few words and little to prove. Or, the more Jade thought about it, plenty to prove, just too quiet to admit it. Too scared, perhaps. He looked at Sam, at the tight, nervous line of his jaw, at the worried, permanent crease through his forehead. There was so much Jade had fucked up over, so many mistakes he made. They all stayed quiet and dormant and secret under his skin though, the cigarette burned sheet under a prim and tucked in comforter blanket, all made into a nice bed. He didn’t know Sam all that well, but something about that perpetual look of concern on his face, and the shadows in his eyes made Jade think that there could be cigarette burns in Sam’s sheets, too.


	11. Chapter 11

Davey forgot it was 9 am when he went to the coffee shop to skype with his harem. He not only forgot it was nine in the morning, but that he was in an entirely different time zone, making it 6 am in California. Therefore, Davey was stuck at a coffee shop in downtown Newburgh with his computer and no company. Jade was with Sam, and Davey decided that wasn’t actually a bad arrangement. The notion of Jade getting close with Sam Winchester, bonding with him or bonding with anyone at all, for that matter, made Davey feel satisfied and comforted. 

Of the pair Davey was the one always making acquaintances everywhere he went, with Jade standing quietly, rolling his eyes behind him while Davey chatted up the cashier girl, the couple sitting adjacent to them at a restaurant, the high schooler bagging his groceries. It wasn’t that Jade was socially inept or anything. It was partially Davey’s own fault, in truth; he didn’t feel good about himself unless he was blatantly dominating conversation. He was glad Sam and Jade were alone together, talking. He trusted Sam for no reason at all, he supposed, apart from the fact that he had an honest face. 

So Sam’s honest face and Jade’s inclination for being shy were what possessed Davey to stay in this shop, with free wifi but no one to skype. He didn’t exactly know why he chose to start case-hunting, it wasn’t like he knew what to look for or anything. The internet was a huge place, though, and Davey knew a thing or two about navigating it, so in the hour or so it took for Jade and Sam to finish their bonding session and call Davey up, he had a list of what he perceived to be poorly explained or unsolved crimes in surrounding states. It was one in the township of Liberty, Ohio that generated the most information. Namely, some Dungeons and Dragons playing kid constructed a blog of supernatural conspiracy theories centered around mysterious disappearances and violent crimes in the area, and it seemed like he was onto something. 

“He’s really into medieval stuff, so he looked into lore and legends. Is that bullshit, or--” Davey explained once the Impala swung by to pick him up, Sam’s fist coming down to honk the horn abruptly. Davey showed them the kid’s blog, which was full of video interviews he’d done with himself and his webcam, all featuring in depth theories and explanations for the crimes. 

“Not bullshit. Not all of it anyway. Dean and I use lore a hell of a lot to figure out how to kill things...what kind of lore, though? Is it legit stuff or just from his video games?’ Sam asked skeptically. Davey shrugged, scanning the webpage he’d bookmarked. “Dunno, sounds legit to me. It’s really old.” 

Davey had then proceeded to inform Sam and Jade of the articles and headlines he’d acquired concerning the disappearances, all low profile cases with no resolution. According to the local news, a handful of elderly citizens in Liberty had gone missing from their home after brutally beating their caretakers, who were often their own adult children. There were five instances, and apparently Liberty police were taking the harebrained stance of “something in the water.” No one else could think of any reason why little old grannies would suddenly get vicious, nor why anyone in their right mind would want to kidnap an old person. So of course, it was the water. 

No one but Evan Hopkins, this blotchy faced fifteen year old who spent all his time documenting his own, personal deductions he’d made about Liberty’s missing old folks. He was chubby and awkward and not exactly the kind of kid you might think had logical insight on local unsolved crimes, but neither was Sam or Dean, or Davey for that matter, so he tried to push his reservations aside and watched every single video Evan blogged, all the while sipping his chai and waiting for Jade and Sam to finish up their little heart to heart. 

“He thinks it’s ah... fuck I can’t remember what it’s called. But he essentially thinks this monster robot thing is changing its appearance and breaking into residences, embodying the old person and beating up the caretaker, then splitting with grandma and hiding somewhere,” Davey explained to Sam, leaning up to the front seat. “I thought it sounded crazy, but like any good conspiracy theorist he had me convinced. He had all this evidence, stuff about the police covering up facts because the leads pointed to the unexplained. Just like the police department withholding information about Kurt Cobain’s murder, you know?” 

“I thought it was a suicide, Dave,” Jade chimed in dryly, just to be annoying. Davey punched his shoulder, but otherwise ignored him. 

“You think this is just some kid’s fantasy world, or a real gig for you?” Davey asked, practically hanging on Sam’s sleeve. It wasn’t as if he craved his approval, he just desperately wanted to understand this whole hunting business. Davey’s life had been a carefully constructed safe-zone around darkness. He was fascinated by the macabre and death, but loathed the idea of war. He loved scary stories about haunted houses and ghosts, but horror movies pissed him off and disturbed him with their liberal use of gore and cheap thrills formula. 

He wanted so badly for this to be real, something he could be a part of. Without realizing it, Davey was taking on the weight of the apocalypse by making it a novelty, something he could conquer and be good at like anything else. He knew somewhere in the back of his head, however, that he was asking to be bitten in the ass. He just didn’t stop to dwell on it. 

“Did he say it was a shapeshifter?” Sam asked sharply, catching Davey’s eye in the rearview. 

“Yeah, something to that effect,” Davey nodded. “Still, that doesn’t explain why anything on earth would want to kidnap an old person. Old people are even more useless as kids or dogs” he announced. Davey pretended that he hated children and dogs, but the truth was that he secretly liked them, just didn’t want to admit it because they were too similar to himself: eager to please, tail wagging and desperately loyal and trusting. The dog and child hating might have been to some extent a facade, but Davey really _did_ hate old people. If they weren’t senile, they were judgmental, and head-to-toe tattoos and a penchant for messing around with androgyny didn’t exactly scream “don’t judge me,” so Davey had it out for the elderly. 

Sam ignored the comment, instead shaking his head thoughtfully like he was clearing it of cobwebs, faintly exasperated. “Jesus, why is it always the shapeshifters that draw this crowd?” He mumbled to himself, fingering the stitching in the Impala’s upholstery pensively and looking down. “Come again?” Jade asked, but Sam just shook his head again. 

“Nothing, nothing. Last time Dean and I ran into a shapeshifter, there was a guy sort of like this Evan kid who was onto it before we got there...some weird gamer type. Huh. Had the idea straight, just called them “mandroids” and thought they were robots or something...”

“Mandroids!” Davey declared, snapping his fingers and carding his other hand through the tall, stress-matted shock of his hair, brown and blonde and in ten different directions. “That was what Evan called it. A mandroid, half robot half human.” 

“Seriously?!” Sam widened his eyes, wishing it was Dean sitting shotgun to him so they could exchange that knowing, tacit glance that meant _this is weird. You get it_. Instead he made do by shooting a concerned look at Jade, who didn’t return it, seeing as his eyes were fixed affectionately on Davey. He stared all dewy-eyed at him, reaching out to flatten a worried looking cowlick in his hair, sweeping across his creased brow. Davey jolted back a little, corner of his mouth smiling privately as he caught Jade’s wrist, moving the palm before it could ruffle his hair any further.

It wasn’t a particularly suggestive gesture, but it was intimate. Whatever Jade said he and Davey _weren’t_ back at IHOP, Sam officially knew that they _were,_ no matter what they tried to project otherwise. It freaked him out, but not for any of the reasons one would have expected. As Jade’s hand fell, his fingers brushed tenderly along the gaunt, sunken hollow of Davey’s cheek, and Sam’s blood turned to ice.

“Yeah, mandroid. That was the word.” Davey assured him, rubbing at his own chin thoughtfully, thumb scrubbing along the red-brown beard growing in. 

“This guy before...in Michigan, his name was Ronald. He had a whole theory worked out on Mandroids. Think they could have known each other?” Sam mused, wondering is there was a whole legacy of Ronalds across the country, bagging Shapeshipers for the Winchester brothers under the impression that they were half robot.

“Unlikely,” Davey said, shaping his hand around the shoulder strap of his man-bag, silvery grey and made of recycled seat belts, some fashionable thing he’d tacked a bunch of one inch pins onto, making it look like a high schooler’s backpack. Davey watched Jade watch his hand, the curved line of his lower lip twitching almost imperceptibly. “You know, Evan might have mentioned that name. Ronald. I doubt they were friends, this kid’s like fifteen...but they might have known each other online? Social networking sites exist for almost every subculture now days, it’s quite possible they met on some Mandroid enthusiasts website that the Ronald guy created,” he explained, picking at his nail polish. It always got chipped off his index fingers and thumbs first, leaving the pinky a usually untainted plane of enamel. This frustrated Davey, so he liked to flake off that polish, just to spite it. 

“Or maybe just a gaming site, and they got talking. It’s not unusual for people with conspiracies to group together and share experiences,” Jade mumbled, eating his words. Jade did that a lot, swallowing his words before they really got a chance to breathe. Davey was used to it and could decipher his muttering, but Sam missed it, cocking his head. It didn’t matter too much, he was already sold. Of course Ronald had a whole following he’d converted to the Mandroid School of Belief on some website. He wasn’t complaining, though, it made for a whole score of internet-addicts who believed in shapeshifters to some degree. 

“Good work guys, I think we’re good to go to Ohio and kill a shifter,” He finally said, pulling into the motel lot, tires crunching noisily over gravel. “Or, you know, a mandroid,” he added, smiling at Davey in the rearview. 

~*~

They were on the road by four o clock that evening, and Sam Winchester was shocked on multiple accounts. He was shocked that Dean didn’t murder him violently for taking the car, and instead decided to play it off like he didn’t care. He was shocked that they already found a case, not to mention one in Western Ohio which was exactly in the direction they needed to be heading. He was shocked that the lead for the case had been acquired by Davey, of all people. He was shocked that said lead seemed not only promising, but slam-dunk, shoe-in their kind of business. But most of all, he was shocked that Dean had taken this lead like Sam himself had found it, read over it, and started driving to Ohio without so much as a curse word thrown in anyone’s direction. 

If Sam didn’t know better, he would have thought the world ended already, the way Dean was acting. 

A hour or so into the drive, Sam caved, finally having to say something. Davey had his headphones on, laptop opened on his thighs while his fingers hammered away manically, eyes flitting back and forth. Jade was similarly absorbed, having a full fledged conversation via text message with his brother. Dean was slouched behind the wheel pretending he hadn’t climbed atop Sam the night prior and fixed his mouth messy and whiskey-slick to his pulse. Everyone was occupied, so Sam figured it was as good a time as any to broach the subject of the aforementioned shocking things to Dean.

“Why are you doing this?” He blurted finally, turning to Dean who looked minorly affronted, brows gathering and mouth tensing. 

“I dunno what you’re talking about,” Dean responded gruffly, which was exactly how Sam would have predicted him to respond. He thought briefly back to that morning, back to Jade’s insightful explanation: _He doesn’t want to seem vulnerable. I crash and burn, but he doesn’t even want to admit he’s going down._

“Dean,” Sam said meaningfully, resorting to his common habit of placing everything he meant and needed to say onto that one word, his brother’s name. It served as a conduit for every confession and apology he ever needed to make, that emphatic, one syllable _Dean._ He thought of John Winchester, speaking volumes of responsibility and expectation he forced upon his oldest son with that one, terse word. 

“What, Sam?’ Dean snapped bitingly in response, grip flinching warning-tight around the wheel like he was forcing his hands to refrain from forming fists. He bared his teeth then at Sam, eyes flashing emerald and dangerous and boiling over like a sky full of too many stars. Sam cringed, back thumping against the seat. “What? You want to talk about this in front of them? You want to drag all this shit out onto the table, Sam?” Dean hissed, working his sweating palms around the wheel furiously. 

“I just want to know why you’re acting like this. Why aren’t you throwing a fit that we’re going off something Davey found?” Sam started with frantically, voice thin and forced and chipped like the red paint that once coated the toolbox full of firearms they had, which had since worn off. “You hated him, last time I checked.” 

“Why?! Why the fuck not, Sam? He was right about Madeline Alberts, so why not? Just because I think someone’s a prick doesn’t mean...” Dean said through his teeth, eyes jumping to the rearview to make sure none of this conversation was making it to the backseat. Headphones were safely in, eyes downcast, but still. He was jumpy like a racehorse, anticipating the sharp crack of the starting gun, down the stretch they come, all thundering hooves and flying clumps of sod. 

“Doesn’t mean what? You just want to get the hell out of New York, that’s what. Because Newburgh is officially going to be the place you--” Sam was about five seconds from saying it, hissing the hateful, searing phrase _fucked me again_ out through his clenched jaw and let it lick into Dean’s tender hide, flaying skin from bone, when Dean slammed on the brakes unexpectedly and threw Sam into the windshield. He was quaking, staring hard at Sam’s shaken up frame slumped over the dash with his hair messed up and his mouth hanging open stupidly. Davey and Jade protested from the back, and Davey was examining his laptop worriedly for damage that might have occurred from catapulting into the seat in front of him. 

“What’s your problem,” Jade asked, rubbing at his neck from where the seat belt burnt him. His hand found its way to Davey’s elbow, long bony fingers attaching themselves on instinct and Sam, looked away, eyes stinging. 

“That, kids, is a lesson on what happens when your seatbelt is not fastened in my car. Sam, here, will demonstrate how to properly sit shotgun, won’t you Sam?” Dean barked accusingly, pointing to Sam’s unfastened belt. Sam’s heart was thundering like those hooves, blood galloping through his veins like that flying sod. Down the stretch they come, he thought, and felt the click of the Impala’s metal resounding in his knotted stomach as he grudgingly fastened his belt without looking at Dean. 

“Thanks, Sam,” Dean grumbled sharply, pressing his foot to the gas pedal again, glad they were alone on this middle-of-nowhere highway.

“Yeah,” Sam answered in a shaky voice, swallowing thickly around a bitter, fearful taste in his throat. He was ultimately relieved Dean had stopped him from saying what he intended to say. After all, it wouldn’t have done any good. No matter how stupid and closed off and guarded Dean could be, this was Sam’s fault, Sam’s time to make up for the ground he’d lost with his brother over the course of the last year. During his breakfast with Jade, Sam noticed a familiar, hunching guilt in the way Jade talked about Davey. 

The note in both of their voices that wordlessly said, _I ruined things, and I’m trying to fix them now_. The sound of debt, the chiming, high-pitched and lonesome sound of so many coins tumbling from every slot machine in Vegas save for the one you were feeding your money to. Sam knew the sound well, it was the sound he heard when he wasn’t saying anything, when he wasn’t thinking anything. The sound of his breath moving in and out of his crushed lungs, the sound of his torn-up heart beating infuriatingly despite all the odds stacked against it, all the slot machines in Vegas, all the horses galloping down the stretch whinnying high and lonesome. 

He was glad he hadn’t said anything to Dean, because when it came down to it, he got angry here and there, but he was still wrong, still made the biggest mistake, still made the worst bet. And Dean might not talk, might drive recklessly but still, Sam was the one who was paying. And he supposed that had to be fair about this thing, so the remaining drive back into Pennsylvania Sam made sure he was silent, save for that familar sound of his lungs breathing and his heart beating. 

~*~

They hadn’t been on the road all that long before they were forced to stop, Dean slowing the Impala grudgingly, mumbling a “what the hell is this...” while rolling down the window. He stuck his head out, glaring at the officers who were blocking the road and flagging the car to a stop. 

“What’s going on?” Dean barked, eyes squinting in the glaring, post-noon sun. Davey and Jade clumped together nervously on the back seat, Davey shutting his laptop with a snap and shifting subconsciously closer to Jade.   
“Sorry to inconvenience you folks...” the officer began, addressing Dean. “But you’re nearing a quarantine zone, and you need to reroute.” There were several police men and women, all wearing reflective orange vests over their uniform, neon and painful too look at like a sunset after a wildfire. Behind them there was a barricade, built from splintering two by fours and aluminum siding, all of which was draped in yellow crime scene tape like streamers at some fucked up party. 

“Quarantine zone?!” Dean growled, turning his head to look at Sam meaningfully, brows raised. “Quarantined from what?”

“We don’t know, sir.” The officer to Dean’s left admitted, adjusting his collar and squinting back at the car’s occupants. “We’re just following orders.”

“It’s the Croatoan virus, isn’t it?” Jade blurted from the back seat, and Sam and Dean both shot him a dirty looks, teeth grinding and eyes flashing a warning glare. 

“I can’t say, sir. Like I said. Following orders.” The officer shrugged, motioning for them to turn around. Dean sighed, shaking his head as he backed the Impala up. “Watch the news,” The officer called after them, saluting. “It’ll tell you the states to stay out of.” 

“Yeah, whatever,” Dean huffed, sighing. He adjusted the rearview mirror, palm coming down to rest almost reverently along the dashboard, tracing its lines. Jade was using his GPS to get new directions, right hand unconsciously skittering across the divisive middle seat between him and Davey, thumb resting at the seam of Davey’s jeans while he punched the keypad with his opposite hand. “Got new directions for you,” He piped up, handing the phone to Sam, who narrowed his eyes and peered at it. 

“Well that’s handy. Thanks.” He said, but Dean was predictably unimpressed, still put off by being turned around in his tracks. If Dean felt like anything belonged to him that wasn’t his brother, he would lay claim to the roads. Every goddamn one of them in America, seeing as they’d been more of a home to him than any one residence had ever been. He hated being told to go back and change his path, it always felt like something important was being taken from him, and Dean hated being robbed of things that were rightfully his. 

“Whoop de fuckin’ do, the kid with his gadgets saves us again,” Dean bitched, hunkering down behind the wheel and sagging, discouraged that Princess Prissy Pants Davey was getting cases for them, and Jade had his goddamn GPS. Dean felt invaded and replaced, like Sam couldn’t just give these guys a ride, he had to goddamn make them into Hunters. The kid didn’t know when to stop, when to back the fuck down. Dean had to admit, Davey and Jade had grown to be fairly helpful assets...with their cultural capital or whatever Sam called it...but Dean didn’t want to dwell on the parts where Sam had been right. He wanted to hate Davey and Jade, he wanted this to be their fault. It was a struggle, unfortunately, because Sam _was_ right sometimes, so Dean had to make do with sitting quiet and surly in the front seat, ignoring the places where his black and white, right or wrong logic didn’t line up. 

The new route wasn’t terribly out of the way, but it still put them back a good forty five minutes. Everyone was tired and cranky and hungry by that point, and Dean was fighting an epic battle with himself in his mind. His head was clogged and haunted with broken images of last night, things he half remembered and could half see. Sam spread out and ruined underneath him, the smell of his skin salty and metallic like blood and rock salt rounds just fired. Sam’s mouth parted and broken around a crushed groan, forced and thin and crumpled sounding from being underneath Dean’s weight. Sam’s breath coming out in desperate wheezes, needy and ragged and high and lonesome. 

These were the things that kept getting overturned in Dean’s head, these swollen, water-rotted memories decaying in the water, things he couldn’t help but poke at, bring them to the surface all bloated and floating like dead goldfish. He didn’t want to think about them but he couldn’t help it, he had brought them upon himself, he’d _done this._

Dean hated how weak he was about this thing. When Sam started fraternizing with Ruby and drinking his demon blood, of course the sex had stopped. Dean couldn’t possibly fathom breaking a taboo as big as fucking around with your brother when you weren’t even remotely close to him anymore, didn’t trust him an ounce. So it had stopped. In the months following Sam’s realization of how badly he’d betrayed Dean, he’d tried hard to fix things. Tried to regain Dean’s trust, build things up from the wreckage he’d created with his addiction and infidelity. 

It hadn’t worked. Dean was only just beginning to realize that this might have been because he wasn’t letting it work. 

He still wanted Sam, badly. It wasn’t something he could help, wanting Sam, if it was as easy as that it wouldn’t have happened in the _first_ place. The truth of the matter was that Dean had no one else in the world but his brother, and he loved him with all of his soul and and all of his mind and all of his, _devil take him_ , body. It was what happened when you didn’t spend your time with anyone else at all, and that time you did have you spent saving the guy, and watching him almost die time after time. 

Dean had maintained the firm, comforting belief for all these years that anyone would do it if in his position. He used it to ease the stomach-churning knowledge that he was essentially fucking his brother, used it to get him through the day. Anyone would want to share _everything_ , soul, mind, .... _body_ , with someone if that someone was all they had, and their entire job to protect. Even if that someone was their brother. 

He stopped making himself guilty over that a long time ago. Now, now it was the weakness he used for self-abuse. That was what Dean loathed, the part of his soul, mind, body he couldn’t forgive. Sam fucked him over royally, betrayed him in the worst way. Dean was making him pay because Sam _owed_ him that, Dean needed that debt to be payed in order to forgive him...but here he was, fucking it up. Sam was trying to make things better, become his brother again, and Dean wasn’t letting him get within ten feet of his damaged ego. But he _was_ drinking too much whiskey and stumbling into bed with him. He _was_ rubbing himself off on Sam’s body, he _was_ licking the sweat of his neck and then some. 

Dean was too weak to _not_ give in, and that was what he goddamn hated. He slouched lower in the drivers seat, fingers sore and twitching with how fiercely he was gripping the wheel. It was easy for him to look at Sam and still feel hurt and angry and defensive. It was easy for Dean to look at his brother and resist his attempts at repairing things out of spite and festering wounds. It was even easier, though, to look at Sam and imagine reaching out and undoing those first few buttons of his overshirt, to imagine pressing his palm hot and angry against his brother’s chest. 

It was easier than anything to imagine opening his mouth over Sam’s and pushing his tongue inside, filthy with want as he forced his palms through Sam’s hair, pulling it, pulling him, down and down until they were on top of each other like they were supposed to be. Apparently Dean was going to move mountains before he got over what Sam did to him, but all it took was a bottle of Jim Beam and one pissed off spirit to get him to fuck with Sam again. 

Dean supposed his priorities were fucked up. Dean didn’t care. He just kept driving, hoping that if he went fast enough, he’d be able to leave that broken, battered part of himself in the last city, discarded like an empty bottle of whiskey and a dirty shirt shucked to the ground. 

~*~

They’d just made it to their motel room when Jade’s phone rang, right next to Davey’s head. Davey was sprawled exhausted and aching on the bed, half-listening to Jade piss in the bathroom, mouth twitching into an amused smirk at his groans of relief. He was momentarily startled, jerking to alertness at the chiming of Jade’s ring tone, some stupid top 40 rap song Davey didn’t appreciate but Jade legitimately liked. He grabbed the phone, gaze falling absentmindedly on the caller ID. His stomach dropped when he saw it. He wished this didn’t happen to him every time, but it did. 

“Who is it? Answer it, will you?” Jade shouted from the bathroom, voice barely audible over the sound of running water and the flushing toilet. Davey stared at the phone with hatred, like it was a snake coiled in the pillow they’d be sharing that night, insidious and poisonous. 

“No,” He answered, hand closing around the phone’s rectangular plastic frame anyway, moving against his will. 

“What?” Jade said in his normally pitched voice, kicking the door opened while he dried his hands on the front of his pants. 

“It’s her. I don’t want to.” Davey stated bluntly. He nudged the phone in Jade’s direction when he came up alongside the bed, brows drawn together, gaze dark. The phone had gone quiet, a missed called. “Oh Dave...come on...” Jade said as his eyes fell upon the caller ID, rubbing a palm flat across his face exhaustedly. His voice wasn’t accusatory, just tired, a hint of sadness run through it like one scarlet thread sewing together so much gray and black. 

“I need to call her back you know,” Jade explained, quiet. The entire drive had been comfortable and easy between them, but in a matter of seconds the air was tense and crackling with energy, smooth water suddenly frozen into jagged edges. They regarded each other, Davey sitting on the bed with his knees drawn to his chest, chewing defiantly on his lip, Jade standing thin and awkward with bad posture. “I know,” Davey answered, shuffling his body like a bird rustling his feathers agitatedly. 

It wasn’t like he didn’t know Jade and Marissa still talked. It wasn’t even like they _just_ talked, either. Time Jade wasn’t spending with Davey he was spending with her; they were still almost suspiciously close friends even after everything that had happened. It bothered Davey deeply, made his skin crawl and a childish jealousy coil low and green like woodsmoke in his stomach. He knew he had to pick his fights, though. The logical fraction of himself understood this, tried to remind himself that he should be satisfied with the fact that it didn’t matter who Jade was friends with as long as he was the one Jade came home too most nights, the one Jade fucked exclusively, the one Jade wrote music with. The one Jade _knew_. The one that knew Jade. 

It didn’t always work like that, though. History was history, sure, but Davey still could not comfortably swallow the fact that outside of himself, the woman Jade essentially left him for those four years ago was still a huge part of his life. 

“Hey,” was all Jade said in the way of reassurance, laying his fingers briefly albeit tenderly along the side of Davey’s narrow face, thumb scraping gently across his cheek bone. Then he was taking the phone to the bathroom, punching an obviously familiar number in to the keypad before holding it to his ear, voice calm and even when he said, “Hey, sorry about that. I was in the bathroom. You okay?” 

Davey cringed, gritting his teeth together and gathering himself into a ball on the bed, kicking off his shoes dejectedly. They made twin thumping sounds on the floor, and he tried to still his breathing to that beat, enough years over thirty to know that he was acting ridiculous. The apocalypse was something that Davey was somehow taking in stride, swallowing day by day. But Jade leaving him four years ago? He still got sick over it, still curled himself to a fetal, semi-colon shape on the bed and prayed for the phone call to be over. 

He tried not to think about what they were discussing, just like he tried not to imagine what they did together when they hung out, two or three times a week for Davey to lose his mind. He knew from masochistic snooping he put himself through that it wasn’t anything for him to get worked up about, bike riding and dinner and shopping, the things fags did with their hags. He knew they _needed_ Marissa, that she did a lot in the way of dispersing rumors and prying questions about them, even when those rumors started being true again. He even accepted that not only did they need her, but _Jade_ needed her because she offered things that Davey did not, and could not anymore. She was the shoulder Jade needed that Davey was often too selfish to provide, she was the unfaltering support system that Jade needed that Davey was unwilling to give anymore. 

All of these things were true, but they didn’t stop Davey from absolutely loathing the fact that she and Jade were still such close friends. He knew it, so he mended the gap by pretending on most days that he didn’t care about their friendship, when in reality it made him tear himself to pieces. He couldn’t bitch about it to Jade, that would be unfair, so instead he just allowed it to happen and maintained a usually well composed veneer or nonchalance. 

Today happened to be one of the days his discomfort concerning the issue was ill concealed. Jade came out of the bathroom fifteen minutes or so later, tired bags weighing his eyes down. Davey noticed for the first time in days that Jade was looking thin, the way he got at the end of a long a grueling international tour. 

“How is she?” Davey asked. He never used her name, it felt like this foul tasting, foreign body in his mouth. Saying her name made her real, gave her dimension and personality and the capability of being hurt. If he just referred to her with pronouns, she was Jade’s friend. Our cover. The girl Jade left Davey for. Jade’s ex-girlfriend. If she was _Marissa,_ she was someone Jade could love. She was dynamic; Marissa studied fashion and liked white wine and had a pet dog she carried around like one of those Fashionistas, she used to be picky until she met Jade and now she’s a regular connoisseur. Marissa cried, and yelled, and laughed, and her world was probably destroyed when Jade left her, just like Davey’s was.

“She’s fine. Worried, of course. She told me more about the quarantine zones, how the outbreaks are getting more serious,” Jade said in a broken sounding, cut off voice. He mumbled this through his hands, and Davey knew the rough feel of calloused guitar-palms against the softness of lips like he knew what the inside of his own mouth tasted like. He wanted to snap, lash out and say, _how can she be worried when you’re not hers to worry about?_ But he knew how fucking stupid that would sound. 

If Davey knew anything after Jade came back, it was that he may have returned, but he wasn’t his anymore. He wasn’t anyone’s, and Davey had to accept that. Before Jade left, he and Davey weren’t just in love, were a couple. They shared a residence, a bed, a life. Then Jade left, and came back, creating an awkward and undefinable time when they were back together without actually being _together_. Two men living separate lives that intertwined in different places like vines in a trellis, touching in the professional areas, in the artistic areas, in the bedroom, sometimes even friends again. But not lovers, not a couple. Exclusively _something,_ but not lovers. Maybe Jade wasn’t even _his_ to worry about. 

So in response, the only appropriate thing to say was, “Okay.” So that as what Davey said, thick sounding and unnatural, this mystery pouring from his body like it wasn’t his. Davey swallowed, dropping his blind gaze to the bedspread, which he saw through, straight though into the cigarette burn sheets. 

Jade sat down gingerly next to him, so slowly Davey could almost hear his bones creaking. A realization that _we are getting old_ skated across his mind, but only for a moment, because Jade’s hand was creeping into his lap, gentle and warm and trembling, only slightly. 

“Dave, don’t do this,” He whispered, and Davey was gone. He was elsewhere, mind somewhere else entirely as he disassociated, gaze fixed unwaveringly at some deep-inside bruise of his mind, static and black and then white and then nothing. Just Davey thinking nothing, a slate free of writing or even chalk dust. Jade knew he was doing it, saw him vacate his didn’t have the energy to yank him back from it. Not over this. 

“Okay,” Davey said again, voice taking on this two dimensional, thin quality it got when he was leaving. Wet tissue paper stretched over too many yards, tearing in places, high and lonesome. Like one solitary sound echoing in an empty hospital corridor the word continued on, sterile and white. Jade closed his eyes, hand closing over Davey’s. 

“Please,” He said weakly. “Dave...this...” And he squeezed, feeling Davey’s thin, white fingers gather inside of his loose palm. Davey had the most delicate hands, it was easy for Jade to trick himself into thinking they belonged to a woman when he was having his long winded sexuality crisis. That worked both ways, though, and it was just as easy to pretend _her_ hands were Davey’s, after that mistake he made four years ago. Davey tilted into him, so tired. They sat quietly for a moment, Jade’s touch bringing Davey back from the ether, if only just for a few seconds. He grappled with it, with being here and sitting side by side in a hotel room in motherfucking Ohio while the world ended around them. 

It was a lot to grapple with. He could have easily slipped away again, he could have easily torn his hand back to his own body, shifting away from Jade and rejecting him like he often did. He could have made today one of those days when he didn’t allow them to touch. One of the days he chose to test Jade’s loyalties, how far he was willing to go with him, how far them were willing to go together. But Davey didn’t. Instead he lost the war and leaned into Jade, sighing almost painfully as Jade moved behind him, palms wide and flat and open on his back as he kneaded into his shoulders, hissing a gentle, inaudible prayer that Davey couldn’t hear, but wished he could have. He took a deep breath, though, and sunk backwards, letting his back fit against Jade’s chest where be belonged.

~*~

Sam slammed the motel door behind him, stopping only to deadbolt it. Once they were locked in together he cornered Dean, bearing down on him so there was a total of four or so inches between their bodies, both thrumming with energy and rage. Dean wasn’t allowing his gaze to travel anywhere near Sam, trying hard to pretend this whole thing wasn’t happening, but Sam would’t let him, gripping his brother’s chin with a fierce hold and dragging their eyes to meet, Sam’s crackling red hot, and Dean’s almost all-pupil with fear. 

“Look at me,” Sam ground out, his voice feeling acidic in his throat, corroding soft tissues. He knew he shouldn’t have been pushing his boundaries, but here he was. Laying low and trying not to cause ripples wasn’t working, so he was forced to try a new approach. Dean tried to escape his hand, ducking under Sam’s arm but the attempt was useless and Sam’s hands flew to his shirt front, grasping fists in the layers of material and hauling him to the nearest wall, their mouths centimeters apart. Sam was fucking _sick_ of being ignored. 

“Jesus Christ Sam, do we have to do this _now?_ ” Dean begged, and the plaintive note in his voice almost made Sam back off a little, loosen the lock his knuckles were in. He gritted his teeth, feeling something organic and human twitch in his temple. 

“Yeah. Yeah Dean, we do, because if we don’t, you know what’s gonna happen, right?” he asked, low and harsh. Dean’s head rolled on his neck, face worn and broken and falling to pieces under the heat of Sam’s eyes. He didn’t respond, letting Sam shake him a little, slam his back against the weak motel wall. 

“We’re gonna stop talking for days. Pussy foot around the fact you _fucked_ me again,” Dean cringed visibly at the word, violent color rising in his cheeks but Sam pressed on, “Then it’s gonna be unbearable, seem stupid all over again and we’re gonna carry on like nothing happened. Because that’s what we always do.” 

“Yeah, well, why don’t you let me the _fuck_ go so we can do that, okay Sam?” Dean rasped. His hands had previously been gripped instinctively on his brother’s shoulders, but at this point they left to close over Sam’s fists, trying in vain to pry them apart. 

“No,” Sam hissed, working his knee in between Dean’s legs, holding him there, pinned against the wall. The air around them seemed so hot, desert dry and scorching as Dean sucked nervous, uneven breaths in, helpless under Sam. “I’m not gonna let you.” 

r32;“What do you want me to say?! What the hell do you want to talk a bout man, what do you want to hear? Yeah I still want you, of course I fuckin’ do. That never stopped, but that, that doesn’t _fix_ any of this _shit_ ,” Dean wheezed out frantically, mouth working soft and misshapen around so many garbled words. 

“Nothing we’ve been _trying_ fixes any of it!” Sam exploded out, pressing his hips and thighs flat against Dean’s, eliciting a destroyed groan from his brother, like a word that died halfway up his throat, coming out stifled and half-formed instead. “Nothing. I’m trying so fucking hard, Dean, and you won’t let me fix any of it,” he breathed, wanting to badly to put his hand under Dean’s shirt, so angry and still, so in love. 

“You _fucked up_!” Dean ground out, the words shredded through his teeth, sounding so wounded. Sam let up a little then, actually let Dean go physically, balking at his tone. “You fucked up, Sam,” Dean repeated, his voice cracking how it always did when talked about this. It was a break that exposed the true depth of Dean’s hurt concerning this thing. He liked to pass it off as anger at Sam for starting the apocalypse, but everyone knew Dean was’t the humanitarian he claimed to be, and the only people he cared two shits about were himself and his brother. No, the scar this really left in Dean was about Ruby. About Sam choosing her over him, about Sam _leaving_ like he always swore he wouldn’t do again. This was about Dean’s abandonment issues, not the end of the world, so Sam stopped, standing still just to breath for a minute. 

“Yeah. Yeah I did,” he said finally, jaw still set hard and determined. “And I’m so, so sorry for that. But I can’t fix it on my own, Dean. You gotta let me. You gotta let me _try,_ ” he trembled out, hair loose and hanging in his forehead, quaking with nervous energy. “Please, Dean.” 

Dean stared at him, eyes so old and worried and wide, that red flush still creeping up the column of his neck. “What then, you think us fucking again will solve our problems? Is that your idea of me letting you try and _fix shit?_ ” Dean snapped, but when he spoke his voice was gentler, less angry and more tired. Even though Sam let go, Dean was still pressed to him. Their legs remained intertwined, Dean’s back flat against the wall. 

“I’m not saying that, no,” Sam sighed, letting his hand rise to press open-palmed to Dean’s throat, the thrumming of blood just pulsing there, under his fingers. Dean flinched away but not entirely. “But I’m saying it can’t hurt,” he finally mumbled, and because Dean didn’t say no, Sam mouthed a damp, burning trail down his brother’s neck to his collar bone, hand fumbling between then for his button and fly. Dean didn’t say no, but he did make one high and lonesome sound deep in his throat, finally cupping Sam’s cheek and dragging him upwards, fitting their mouths together and licking him apart.


	12. Chapter 12

Jade woke up with a start, the length of his right side pressed against Davey entirely, their naked skin sweat-adhered and sticky. Forgetting where he was and why he was there, the panic tightened in his throat until the initial shock of sudden waking wore off. He blinked through the morning bleariness clouding his eyes, his hand coming to clutch at his own chest like it were scrambling to get to the soft spaces in his heart, which was pounding and making his lungs and ribs feel like a too-tight fit. He looked to Davey, still curled into a half-moon shape and sleep-breathing. Davey was usually the one who suffered from early mornings and late, late nights. However, if they fucked the night before, it would be Jade lurching out of a restless sleep the following morning, insides churning and the clock reading some ungodly hour. 

It didn’t surprise Jade that when he dragged his phone off the rickety motel bedside table, the clock showed eight thirteen am. It had been a long time since Jade awoke in this anxious state, but is almost always occurred after he and Davey fucked. Seeing as sex definitely, unexpectedly had occurred the night prior, Jade fell into the same gut-twisting routine. He detached his side from Davey’s, grinding his teeth together and urging himself to come down. He took careful, deep breaths until the sick feeling faded, heart leaping slightly at the tired hissing moan that escaped from Davey’s lips.

Pieces of Jade’s existence and surroundings came back to him, Sam and Dean and a motel in Ohio, the Impala’s glinting windows and diner food and inevitably, the Apocalypse. Finally, the panic in Jade’s insides gave way to a sinking dread. 

He groaned, rubbing his mussed bangs from his forehead and allowing his still-cloudy eyes to scan the line of Davey’s sleeping body in the overcast morning gloom, the topography he was creating in the covers like lines in a three dimensional map. Jade imagined tracing it, laying the flat of his palm in slow motion over the familiar curves and angles. There were his broad, tattooed shoulders, the gentle slope of his ribcage giving way to the tuck of his waist, then the hard angle of narrow hips and thighs, which then disappeared into a heap of bedsheets. Jade remembered so many years of nights spend touching that line with a practiced hand, smoothing the perpetually ruffled feathers of Davey’s wings.

A familiar but unwelcome tightening occurred in his chest, and Jade inhaled sharply, thinking it was probably in his best interest to leave the bed before he woke Davey, or before his own guilt crippled him. 

It wasn’t always like this. It fact it hadn’t been for awhile. There were plenty of times Jade woke up naked and in Davey’s bed completely sated and stupid and happy, a little stiff and sweaty under the weight of Davey’s arm, perhaps, but psychologically sound. But then there were the guilty mornings. The guilt originated because of Jade’s early-twenties sexuality crisis; which he got over (but not entirely, as it seemed) over the course of one long year in which Davey was very persistent, very understanding, and unfalteringly optimistic in this way that made Jade hurt with nostalgia, hurt with how far _gone_ that part of Davey was.

Once the sexuality crisis was averted to the best of either of their ability, the post-coital guilt disappeared for a long time, rearing its defiant head here and there when Jade was having a particularly self-deprecating day, but otherwise staying a remnant of a past. Then things had gotten so fucked up Jade didn’t even want to think about it, about how much they deteriorated, how much they lost. Waking up feeling like he’d made some huge mistake or that Davey deserved better was a minor inconvenience in comparison to the other shit he’d had to deal with at that point, the mind-breaking wounds he dug into Davey, even if he had no other choice, even if it wasn’t anyone’s fault. 

The guilt returned for good when Davey had taken him back, Jade slinking through the foyer and eventually back up into the bedroom (on good days) with his tail between his legs, a whipped street cur. And really, _of course_ it did. How could Jade _not_ feel guilty about fucking someone who made him feel like he was lucky to be allowed inside the house like some poorly behaved dog? Even that faded, but not entirely. 

Mornings like this morning his guilt was completely unrelated to his sexuality. It was related to the mistakes he made, the guilt trips, the way he’d torn Davey’s wings from his back and attempted to piece them back together with duct tape and chewing gum and crazy glue. The guilt was about Davey’s grievances against Jade, and reparations he was still paying. 

On mornings like these, he usually called his brother. Ironically, Marissa was his wing-man for almost all facets of his life, but he would never expect her to listen to or help him with his problems concerning Davey. She didn’t like to hear about him or even _think_ about him. In fact, Marissa was his wing-man for all facets of one of his lives: His carefully constructed, veneer heavy Los Angeles life with the dog and the Primetime Television and suburban house with flower boxes. 

This life was necessary for his sanity, but it wasn’t his _real_ life. It was the life his holographic double lived in, the inflatable version of himself. His real life where the real him lived was broken in a bunch of different places, shoddy and scabbed over and all the wrong colors. It didn’t match and he wasn’t proud of it, but that was what anyone would have seen if they’d peeled off the LA life, split Jade open and pulled him apart and taken a long hard look at his music and his past and the still burning wreck he’d created. Jade had two lives, both of which revolved around one person who didn’t acknowledge the other’s existence. Therefore, Smith was his wing-man on the Davey issues, because they existed exclusively within the _real_ life, not the Los Angeles one that Marissa inhabited and reigned over. 

Jade was about to heave himself from the trapping, heated entanglement of the bed he shared with Davey and lock himself in the bathroom to call Smith for his sanity when he remembered he was in Ohio. Smith wouldn’t be awake for another six hours or so. Jade cursed internally, a fleeting wave of panic electrocuting him with how far away he felt before it passed, replaced with an aching exhaustion, a wish for just a few hours of restful sleep.

He knew this was fruitless, however, deciding that the best way to deal with his rude awakening would be to retreat to the comforting confines of routine. He would act like this were any other morning, go take a shower and rinse the long since cooled sex-sweat from his aching body, do his hair, put himself together. Take a leaf out of Davey’s book and construct a presentable picture for the rest of the supposedly ending world, while his insides crumbled like always behind the veil. 

He laid on his back for a few more seconds, willing his heart to slow its nervous palpitations, staring as a motel ceiling that was covered in what looked like bullet holes, or at least the tiny circular pockmarks left by someone’s wayward shots on a BB gun. Imagining that these constellations were stars he could name and find his way by, Jade inhaled a rattling breath, ignoring the soreness of his lungs filling. Finally he turned and pressed a lingering kiss to the fever-warm skin between Davey’s shoulder blades (unable to help thinking about how Davey had dug his teeth into the exact same place on Jade while he fucked him from behind the night prior) and hauled himself from bed, hardly trusting his legs to carry him anywhere, but having no choice otherwise. 

~*~

The motel room the Winchesters were sharing was in a state of disarray as dawn crept up and flooded through the cracked blinds, spilling in jagged shapes of light, pure and grey as ice crystals. Sam rolled over in bed, feeling cramped and sore, too much man in too little space, his elbow uncomfortably cold in the drafty room, exposed without the sheet. He realized the course of his discomfort upon waking, and like most days, the thorn in his side was Dean. Dean who was shorter and less built than him but still taking up two thirds of the queen sized bed. 

A year or so ago, this would have pissed Sam off, and he would have shoved his brother over, punching him out of his sleep with a few jabs to the ribs or shoulders. However, this morning Sam just hauled the covers that had fallen off the side of the bed from their heap on the floor and wrapped them around himself in a fairly half-assed fashion. “Dean...” He mumbled, flattening his chest against the slowly heaving expanse of Dean’s sleeping back, breath catching at the feeling of so much hot skin pressed flush. Dean twitched under him, huffing a low breath out. “Dean. You’re all over the place,” Sam muttered, his throat thick and scratchy with sleep. 

Dean didn’t budge and Sam sighed, letting his eyes scan across the room. It was a battlefield, their clothing strewn and the weak, plywood motel table upturned against the room partition. Sam blinked, brow furrowing. He tried to remember when that table had gotten knocked over, if it had been his body that smashed through the furniture last night by Dean’s hands, or vice versa. He smiled faintly in spite of himself, only mildly disturbed by the dark, burning coil of desire that alighted in his lower abdomen as he recalled what it felt like to finally watch Dean drop to his knees again in front of him. 

His eyes, now adjusted to the low light, fell back on Dean, snoring quietly and smelling sharp but overwhelmingly familiar, like smoke and metal and leather and sex. Sam tried one last time, elbowing his brother lazily and murmuring “Come on dude, move over,” but Dean, like Sam, was unused to sharing a bed again and therefore inconsiderate in his sleep, shoving Sam off and sighing a barely audible “Lemm’sleep,” to Sam, who rolled his eyes and rubbed huge palm through the close crop of Dean’s hair. 

Getting out of bed wasn’t a huge deal seeing as Dean had nearly pushed him out with all those spread limbs, so Sam shook the remnants of sleep off fairly quickly, cracking his neck and feeling incredibly vulnerable in his state of nudity. He hadn’t slept without clothes on since he and Dean stopped fucking, and even then half the time they just crashed in whatever they’d worn that day, jeans and tee shirts and sometimes the flannel over shirt too, if it wasn’t covered in grave dirt or some recently killed monster’s entrails. He shuffled clumsily to his boxers, which were still inside his pants, which were tossed into a desponded bundle in some corner. 

Sam got dressed, distantly aware of the fact they needed to go to the Laundromat asap, seeing as almost everything he picked up and smelled warranted a nose-wrinkle or curled lip. After settling on the least offensive smelling jeans and shirt, Sam checked the time, satisfied to find it was a little after nine. Rarely did he wake up this far past the crack of dawn. Dean, on the other hand, made it his M.O. 

More optimistic than he’d been since Dean returned from hell, Sam was too antsy and keyed up to stay in the room holding his breath, waiting for Dean to wake up. He was halfway to the Impala with his keys and the intention to bring back coffee and breakfast when he spotted Jade sitting on the curb outside his motel room, headphones in and hair styled in the same fashion as the day they’t met, a style Sam hadn’t seen since then. He wondered if this was a red flag, or a sign of improvement. 

He sat pigeon-toed, staring at his feet and mouthing the words to whatever he was listening to, impractically tight gray pants getting dusty on the curb. It wasn’t that cold out, but he was wearing a padded jacket with fur lining the hood and a scarf. Sam was confused until he remembered the guy was from California, and that didn’t exactly prepare one for out of state winters. Sam approached Jade like he would approach a kid that had just been terrified by a ghost, careful and quiet and gentle as not to startle him. “Hey neighbor,” Sam called, and despite his headphones Jade snapped his head up. 

“Oh, hey,” Jade responded awkwardly, touching the wing of shiny, pressed hair that fell across his forehead. “Good morning.” 

“What are you doing up so early and...dressed?” Sam asked, gesturing to the entirety of Jade’s seated form. Jade shrugged, gaze moving back towards the mostly empty parking lot. “I wanted to let Dave sleep.” It was a good enough answer for Sam, but Jade didn’t seem convinced by his own words. Sam studied his face, trying to apply the little he knew about reading someone’s body language to Jade’s guarded stance and furrowed brow, to the way he hunched over his own lap and hugged his knees much like a kid, not a thirty-something year old man. 

A few quiet moments passed during which Sam scoured his mind to think or something to say, and before he realized it he spouted, “Do you know the difference between a motel and hotel?” It was his default question for people who didn’t live his life, it was the question Dean had asked sixteen year old Sam every time Sam fought with their father and stomped off somewhere to sulk and fume and once, damage his hand by punching a low cement wall near this abdnaoned haunted theater they were burning down. Dean’s voice formed around this question soft and even and brotherly, desperately trying to drag Sam down from his fury and ground him back to earth, back by his side. It was a question everyone thought they should know, but never did. 

Jade was no exception and opened his mouth automatically to answer, but of course realized he didn’t actually know the technicality, and his face became puzzled, mouth closing. “No, I guess I don’t.” Jade admitted, cocking his head. 

Sam was sore and really too huge to sit comfortably on a curb, but for the sake of altering the already drastic hight difference a bit, he dropped to sit beside Jade, a painstaking process which made one of his knees pop and a huff of dust to erupt around him.  
“No guesses?” Sam asked. Now that he was relatively close to Jade’s level, he noticed how much different he looked when he put effort into his appearance. His hair was obscenely clean looking, catching the early morning light like a goddamn light house beacon or something. On top of that, he had an almost barely there smudge of black khol liner under his eyes, making them look less puffy and exhausted then they usually did. 

“Um...Motels are cheaper than hotels? I dunno, you got me.” Jade said, shrugging and fiddling with his earbuds. Sam could hear music rattling from them, sounding like just a lot of noise. He remembered a few songs off of the AFI album he’d had so long ago. He wondered what someone who wrote that kind of music would listen to on his own time.  
“Nope. Common misconception,” Sam told him. He only then realized the music coming from Jade’s headphones was _rap_ , and was sort of taken aback. Not what he’d figure for a dude wearing eyeliner and shiny flat ironed hair. And a fluffy parka sweater. Especially not a dude who wrote Sing the Sorrow.

“Ok, I give up.” Jade said, already sounding and looking less miserable than he had when Sam found him out here. Sam smiled, kicking absently at the cracked and faded asphalt with his boot. “Motels rooms open up into a parking lot and hotels open up into a hallway,” he said triumphantly. Jade’s face lit up like his own probably had the first time Dean told him this fact, sixteen and so much younger and smoother than now, but still lined with the early signs of a hunter in training. Scars, grime, tear trails through smoke and grave grit and blood spatter. Jade’s face was closer in age to that sixteen year old Sam than the Sam sitting next to him. 

“Seriously?! That’s...that’s...I can’t believe I’ve never known that,” Jade said, shaking his head. “Good thing to know, I guess.” 

“ Dean told me when I was a kid, and I haven’t met someone since who knows the answer first time around. Dean knows all these random facts, like every goddamn mother fucking state’s nickname, and how many miles between all the exits on the 91 highway...and probably every other highway. It’s just one of the things you learn when you’re on the road.” Sam went on, talking just to fill the silence. As Sam first started Hunting with Dean again, whenever there was an angsty teenager involved in a case Sam was usually nominated to talk to him, Sam was the one who had a way with rebellious adolescents, with the type of people who were scared but didn’t want to admit it. Dean was good at dealing with attractive ladies and little kids, but Sam always got the sulky teenagers dumped on him. For some reason, he was using the skills he learned dealing with such folks to talk to Jade, Jade’s blanched white face and nervous hands. Jade was still scared, and Sam could sense it. 

“So, you look kind of messed up. Having a bad day already?” Sam asked. Jade took a deep breath, stretching his skinny legs out in front of him with a tired sigh. “I guess. I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed...it happens sometimes.”   
Sam nodded. “Tell me about it.”

Jade ended up accompanying Sam and the Impala to the nearest convenience store, where they bought coffee and food: Nerds and sun chips for Jade, and two powdered egg and alarmingly cardboard textured bacon burritos for Sam, plus another two to bring back for Dean. Jade would have gotten something for Captain Vegan, but of course the only options were unseasoned or “lightly salted” sunflower seeds, which really just weren’t worth the time or effort. Sam promised him that they’d stop at a Whole Foods as soon as possible to prevent Davey’s inevitable starvation. On the way back to the motel, Jade hooked his ipod up to the converter in the Impala (the seldom used converter, seeing as Dean firmly abhorred the thing), and played Sam some Jawbreaker. Sam said he liked it, and he might have lied, but it was the thought that counted. 

After they pulled into the parking lot of the Sunshine Motel (Sunshine missing the light up plastic U, so Snshine Motel, if you were picky), Jade didn’t look all together ready to go back to his motel room. Wondering if Davey and Jade possibly had a fight the night before, or if Davey’s hyper-aggressive motor-mouth nature even got to the ones close to him, Sam smiled crookedly and asked Jade, “You want to help me load rounds of rock salt?” 

“Rounds of what salt?” Jade asked, quirking an eyebrow and smiling back just as crookedly. Sam took this as a yes, letting himself out of the car and plodding towards the motel room, motioning for Jade to follow. He’d just have to kick Dean out for a little while, make him go play nice with Davey perhaps.

“Rock salt,” Sam explained as they trekked across the lot. “Pure substances stop ghosts temporarily...so we load shotgun shells with salt to repell’em. We used a bunch of rounds on Madeline Albert’s spirit the other day, so we gotta reload.” 

“To kill the mandroid?” Jade asked dryly, hanging back a few feet from the Winchester brother’s motel room. Sam noticed this, and although it was most likely because a semi-famous dude like Jade knew a thing or two about privacy in a general sense, he couldn’t help but feel paranoid that it was because Jade suspected something. Though Sam knew that the phrase “brothers” automatically eliminated all thoughts of sex and romance from outsiders’ schemas of their relationship, he still made sure to slip carefully through the crack in the door, preventing Jade from catching any glimpses of the one unmade bed. “Hang on,” he mumbled, holding out a hand to urge Jade to wait. Sam thought of the bed Davey and Jade shared, about how no one told him, but he knew. 

“Dean,” Sam hissed, finding his brother sprawled in the exact same position he’d left him in, taking up the majority of the bed, limbs and geometric puzzle like someone’s abandoned game of pick-up sticks. “Dean, come on man, it’s almost eleven o’ clock.” Sam didn’t bother trying to keep his voice down, nor did he quietly go about tossing all their dirty laundry onto a pile on the unused bed and gathering their strewn firearms. Dean jolted out of his sleep, looking swollen and messy and perfect for kissing, for pushing facedown into the carpet and choking. Sam clenched his fists, surprised by how difficult it was to stifle the urge now that he was allowed to do such things again, that Dean would _let_ him do such things again, that darkness clouding the green of his eyes like moss in a stagnant pond as he just _let_ Sam. 

“Jesus,” Sam said, palming his face forcefully and shaking his head. 

“That’s right, Jesus, Jesus _fuck_ Sam can you be any louder? Fuckin’...fuckin’ _shit_ , man.” Dean grumbled, collapsing back down on the bed and huffing. Sam noticed he shifted gingerly, aware of his vulnerability, his nudity, aware of what _happened_ last night. Dean usually overcompensated if he was freaking out about the night prior, but he didn’t seem to be acting particularly out of character right now. Just processing, just aware. Sam dropped the breakfast burrito in his lap and Dean shut his mouth for a half second, rubbing absently at a faded bite-mark on his chest Sam left there.

“I was gonna load rock salt with Jade, so I kind of need you awake,” Sam explained, picking a rifle up off the floor and then clanking it down on the table noisily, eliciting a curse from Dean. 

“Jade? You want to have another little chick status heart to heart with him? God Sam, it must be really nice for you to have these queers with us. You get to be surrounded by your kind.” Dean scoffed. Sam didn’t say anything, mostly because _Dean_ was the one who had a dick in his mouth less that thirteen hours ago, but also because he was relieved that Dean was teasing him as voraciously as always. Teasing was usually a good sign in regards to Dean’s mental health. 

“Can you make yourself scarce for just an hour?” Sam asked, shooting a sort of clean shirt in Dean’s direction, sling-shot style. It hit Dean in the shoulder, and he scowled at it. “What the hell am I supposed to do? Run errands for you?” He bitched, and Sam coughed at him, rolling his eyes. 

“Yeah, actually. The laundry is borderline _inhumane_ to people who have to smell us, and there’s a Laundromat in town. Also, Captain Vegan needs to be fed,” Sam pulled a tiny square of paper from his pocket, the receipt for the burritos and coffee this morning which Jade had jotted down a hasty list of Davey-Friendly foods upon. 

“This stuff,” Sam explained, shrugging. “I haven’t heard of half of it, but Jade said the people there would help you.” He explained, pressing the receipt into Dean’s palm, along with a fifty dollar bill Jade also provided for him.

Dean glared at Sam, still groggy from being awaken so abruptly. “No! I’ll take the laundry, but no rabbit food. S-e-i-t-a-n? Like satan? What the fuck is that? Maybe these dudes are in allegiance with the Devil, and we just don’t know it yet.” He bitched, crumpling Jade’s messy little list up in a rough palm. 

Sam was prepared for this. “Jade said keep the change, buy yourself a nice organic pie or some shit.” 

Dean chewed his powdered eggs and cardboard bacon thoughtfully for a few moments, pretending to mull it over. “Satan Pie, sounds delicious, I dunno, Sam. It’s a pretty tempting offer, but...” Five minutes later, Dean was out the door, complaining all the way to the Impala with a bag of rancid laundry and a list of Captain Vegan’s necessary evils. 

~*~

“So you used these to kill Madeline?” Jade asked, holding up a shotgun shell packed full with rock salt, the gun metal leaving traces of oil on his fingers. He examined it with a squint, hunched forward in his chair, elbows propped on the table that had only recently been pushed upright again. Sam was staring at Jade with a peculiar squint as well, brow split along the middle with a tense furrow. It was strange to see Jade in his motel room, Jade with his styled hair, leave in conditioner, tight pants and skinny purple and black striped scarf. He looked almost laughably out of place among the scuffed up and well used guns, ammunition, and opened tool-box full of a thousand dirty shot gun shells and a rusty tin full of solid silver bullets. 

“Nah, just to blow her away for a few seconds, create a distraction and buy us some time,” Sam explained, carefully loading a pistol up with the newly packed shells. They made familiar clinking clatter sounds, metal against metal as comforting as a lullaby. This was what Sam had been raised on, but Jade might as well have been an extra on a TV drama lost in a horror movie set. 

“So we’re loading these for the mandroid you’re tracking?” Jade asked, wiping his fingers on a wad of toilet paper he’d gotten from the bathroom, leaving black smudges.   
“Shapeshifter. And no, you kill those with a silver bullet through the heart. Same goes for any other breed of shifter...you know, werewolf legends and whatnot call for silver bullets, right? We’re just loading these to stay prepared.” Sam leaned down, rifling through the toolbox for the bullet tin, opening it for Jade to see the heavy silver bullets. 

“Where on earth do you buy silver bullets?” Jade asked, picking one up and examining it. His eyes were narrowed, genuinely fascinated. Sam shook his head, snapping the tin closed and replacing it in the tool box. “We don’t buy them, we make them. Buy silver jewelry wherever we can find it and melt it down.”

“Jeez, what an operation. I gotta hand it to you,” Jade said, nodding to Sam. “Thanks for learning all this stuff so you can keep us regular people safe at night.” 

“Thanks,” Sam said honestly, struck by being thanked for once in his long, painful, most commonly unappreciated existence. “And it’s a lot to learn, but Dean and I will teach you. I mean, you’re already in the car, might as well learn a few things while you’re at it, right?” Sam asked Jade, who nodded in response. “Most definitely, let the lessons begin.” 

They packed salt in companionable silence for a few minutes, the only sounds in the motel room the clicks of metal and slide of guns in palms. Finally, Jade asked Sam without looking up, “Have you ever felt like no matter how hard you try or what you do to make up for them, you’ll always be paying for your mistakes?” He placed meaningful emphasis on his words, the yearning note of a man unforgiven in his voice. Sam stopped, holding his breath for a heartbeat or two thinking how wonderfully Jade had just summed his life up in one simple sentence. 

“Yeah, yeah I have.” He finally responded in a tight, clipped voice. Jade nodded forcefully, chewing on his bottom lip and shaking his head. He kept talking, eyes still fixed on the table, his dirty fingers, and the sack full of rock salt separating them. “I mean, I’ve made some pretty sincere mistakes, I’m not denying that. I wish to fucking _god_ that I could take them back. But they were awhile ago, you know? And I still wake up guilty some days.” 

“Guilt is tough to move on from,” Sam said awkwardly, wishing he had more to say on the subject. Or more like he wished he could narrow down the dictionaries worth of things he had to say on the subject to a suitable response. it was probably better this way, seeing as Jade clearly just needed someone to listen. 

“Especially when you’re being guilt tripped,” Jade said darkly, but then he shook his head, as if clearing it from impure thoughts. “I’m sorry. That’s just me being a bitter asshole. I really fucked him over, he’s just licking his wounds. It’s not his fault.” Jade’s tone of voice had morphed into something outside his body, running away from him with the bit in its teeth. Sam could tell that Jade had half-forgotten he was there at all and was speaking unguardedly. Sam spoke carefully, asking “Who...Davey?” 

“Yeah, Dave. It’s not like he’s even...just...jeez, you don’t want to hear this shit, do you?” Jade suddenly asked, his eyes finally meeting Sam’s across the table. They were huge and brown, childlike and nervous and Sam heard himself saying, “It’s fine. I don’t mind.” And then, if agreeing to listen wasn’t enough, he added, “If you don’t mind me asking, what did you do to him exactly that was so horrible?” 

Jade balked slightly, recoiling into his furry, hooded jacket. Sam urged him on, reminding, “I don’t care about you two being together, I swear. I could give two shits about what you do personally.” Jade looked at him long and hard a wounded after that, but eventually he took a deep breath, dropped his narrowed eyes to the table and admitted, “It just got to be too much.” 

Sam nodded, holding his breath again in this way that made him feel like if he exhaled, he’d shatter something, shatter Jade and his stupid fur hood and his wide, sad animal-eyes. Jade chewed his lip some more, cocking his head to the side and laughing a little, like he couldn’t believe that the only person outside his own brother and Davey himself he was telling the saga too was Sam Winchester, some blue collar monster-hunter from Kansas. His own _band_ members didn’t know this shit, and Sam Winchester was about to. 

He thought the world might be ending, and then he remembered it was. 

“I’m not gay,” he started with, laying this down like it was a necessary foundation for the rest of the story. “But I love Dave. We were together for a long time, really together, _married,_ really, without the paper work and ceremony and whatever,” Jade explained. Sam raised an eyebrow.   
“sexless marriage?” He asked, just to be sure, seeing as it had struck him from the very beginning and he needed validation on his gut-feeling, his intuition. Jade looked uncomfortable, but still admitted in a low, tight voice, “No, definitely not.” 

Sam nodded curtly, giving his best _whatever floats your boat_ look. He added, just to give the air of nonchalance, “Ok. How long were you guys together?”  
“Five years,” Jade answered automatically, the words forced from his mouth quick and professional like he needed to do it fast and without attachment, otherwise the admission would hurt him physically. “Shit,” Sam responded, impressed. “Long time.” 

“Really long time. And most of it, most of it was good. Regular issues and ups and downs, but good. Then it just got to be too much,” Jade explained, wringing his hands together. He looked over-warm in his impractical jacket, but Sam could tell he didn’t want to take if off in fear of feeling too exposed. Sam knew the feeling. He also knew the feeling of the knee jerk _I’m not gay_ , seeing as the thought definitely crossed his mind once or twice, although it was mostly over shadowed by the obvious incest factor. Dean’s gender was secondary to his blood relation to Sam, but still, the thought had arose. 

“Dave...he’s a lot to deal with. And not just in the way you’ve seen. That’s just _him,_ but besides that he’s...he’s really fucked up. Psychological problems, mental health...you know.” 

Sam did know about psychological problems. 

Jade continued, carefully averting his eyes from Sam and talking to the table, eating his words enough so that Sam had to lean in, listening hard. “It kept on getting worse and worse, and I guess I just couldn’t deal. I dunno if you’ve ever had someone you love be really, really fucked up but it takes a gigantic toll on you. And mostly because you love them and it hurts when they’re hurting...but it got to be more than that. I mean, I’m not a picnic. I have problems too, and I needed him too, and he just wasn’t _there_ , he couldn’t...” Jade trailed off, swallowing hard and coughing a little. He shook his head slowly methodically, and Sam worried sincerely for a moment that Jade might break down and cry at his little motel table, making this whole thing more awkward than it already was. 

Jade Puget, guitarist of a band that Sam had liked in his mopey, angry college days, was sitting in his motel room in Ohio detailing the downfall of his gay love affair with the singer of said band, while the world crumbled outside. Sam’s life was always surreal, but sometimes it got ridiculous. 

“He couldn’t what?” Sam prompted, pushing a few larger granules of rock salt around the table, weaving them in and out of the obstacles, the pistols, shotgun shells, the oil stained scrap of rag. He was careful not to look at Jade, not wanting to scare him out of his state of vulnerability. Sam thought of all the witnesses he’d had to coax information out of over the years, how this wasn’t much different. 

“Couldn’t take care of me, I guess,” Jade said with a shrug, laughing in his broken, completely humorless way. He leaned into the chair then, back thumping against it as he lamented, “I cannot fucking _believe_ I’m telling you this. I haven’t told _anyone_ about this, man.” Jade rubbed at his eyes wearily, pulling his palms back to peer blearily at the two half-moons of smudged eyeliner they left. 

“Maybe that’s why you still feel guilty, because you keep it inside. Trust me, Dean and I are the absolute _worst_ at talking about things, but its always better when we do. Otherwise it just poisons you.” Sam says this all stiffly, mouth feeling foreign around the phrase _Dean and I._ He realized after the fact that he’d just compared Davey and Jade’s relationship to his own with his brother, and although the parallels were endless he didn’t exactly mean to imply they were the _same._ He wanted to disclaim this but kept his mouth shut, teeth sunk deep in his tongue as Jade answered, “Yeah, but who would I tell? No one knew about us, no one _knows_.” He sighed miserably, rubbing at his eyes again. “It’s all so fucked up.” 

“Yeah, sounds like it.” Sam said quietly, regarding Jade across the table and thinking that for all their differences, for the different universes they grew up in and still inhabited, he understood what Jade was talking about, what Jade felt. Maybe Jade had never fired a shot until now, and Sam had never heard of and didn’t particularly care for Jawbreaker, but they had an understanding, and seeing as Sam knew about five people in the entire world, an understanding with one of them had to count for something. 

“Thanks,” Jade mumbled, smiling this watery smile. “I guess now that the world is ending, I might as well get therapy for my consuming guilt issues and long running unhealthy, codependent relationship. Although seeing as therapists are sort of running short in the Book of Revelations, a demon hunter will have to suffice.” 

Sam snorted, using the scrap of old tee shirt on the table to clean off the barrel of one of Dean’s guns, just looking to do something with his hands. “Sam Winchester, MD. Certified Shrink.” 

“Has a nice ring to it,” Jade said solemnly, picking at his cuticles and staring through his hand, passed the intricate creases and veins and callouses like a map, some unrealized treasure hidden between his first finger and thumb. He sighed. “Basically, I left him when he needed me most, because I couldn’t handle it anymore. In retrospect I should have just waited it out. I made such a big fucking mess of things.” Jade spat this last part out bitterly. 

“It wasn’t your responsibility to _fix_ him,” Sam said meaningfully, thinking of all the times he made it his own responsibility to fix Dean, to patch him up and stitch him together, and in incidentally blame himself when Dean just fell apart in his arms again. “That doesn’t work, not in a relationship. You’ve got to haul your own weight, too.” 

“Yeah, but there were plenty of times before when I relied fully on him, and he didn’t back out like I did. And honestly, it’s not just that I left. I left, and moved in with someone else.” Jade admitted like this was some huge travesty. “Dave thinks that I left him because of the gay thing or some trivial issue like that, he thinks I was just sick of having this secret relationship with him and I wanted to trade it in for the girlfriend and the white picket fence and the dog and whatever.” 

“You got a _girlfriend_?” Sam blurted, trying very hard but still in vain to picture Jade with a woman. Jade nodded, appearing a tiny bit offended but too distraught by the conversation overall to say anything about it. “Yeah, I did. I needed a girlfriend. And I loved her, too, just not the way I love Dave. She gave me everything I wanted and needed but it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t him. So I didn’t just fuck Dave over, I fucked her over, too.” 

Sam stared pensively at Jade, thinking distantly and achingly about Jess, his first love, his first _everything_. Though he deified and romanticized Jess as a perfect white cloaked Almost Virgin Mary in his head, held alongside his mother in the shrine of things he’d lost, he’d long since replaced her with Dean as _everything._ Regardless, he remembered the simplicity of his relationship with Jess, the clear cut gender rolls and the Apple Pie they would have made together if she hadn’t been burned on the ceiling. 

He remembered how easy it was for him to be her _boyfriend_ , with all the meaningless implications of such words, just as she was his _girlfriend_ , in every sense of the word. She took care of him an his emotional needs in this unfaltering, unquestioning way as he played the easy, natural role of the strong, chivalrous male provider and she _wanted_ that, it was what he could give her. What he gave her. It was perfect. It was what was expected. 

But Dean was the one who knew his secrets, the cesspool of pain and rock salt and grave dirt that was his past, present, and future. Dean was the one who knew the exact location of each scar on Sam’s body, he was the one who had hand-sewn more than half of them up, fingers tinted orange with iodine s he dressed Sam’s wounds and popped back in his dislocated joints and put him back together again, like always. Jess held all of Sam’s shattered pieces together, but Dean was the one who wielded the needle and thread.

In all the time Sam spent in love with Jess, he never told her the truth about his life. So maybe he was more in love with the idea of her than Jess herself. He broached this to Jade, speaking more of himself and less of the man in front of him, but that was how they were both functioning at this point so he didn’t stop himself. 

“Did you love her, or did you love that she gave you what Davey couldn’t?” Sam said quietly, his voice dark and heavy and loaded. Jade let out a quiet barking laugh, the sound of it bitter and raw as it left his throat, a scrape with gravel in it and the edges black from asphalt. 

“Something like that. I do love her though, she’s still one of my very closest friends...like I said, I just don’t love her the way I love Dave. I never did, Not like she deserved. but I thought I could.” Jade forced all of this through his lips painfully, like it hurt the skin of his mouth to spit out so many things so sharp and infected. “Anyway, the abridged version is that I left Davey when he was at his lowest point, and then messed her up in the process of figuring out I never should have left in the first place. And then Davey took my groveling ass back, but four years later I still feel like shit about everything.” Jade spat out. Sam could imagine his words leaving spots of tar, sticky and black on the table. Jade looked up abruptly, a false cheer to his wide smile, a glinting wetness to his eyes. 

“Well then,” He said brightly. “That’s what I did. What did you do? Why are you still guilty?” 

Sam looked at Jade for a long time, rolling his tongue all over the sour, hell-fire taste of sulfur in his mouth and sighing, long and low. “Well,” He said evenly, allowing his eyes to drop to the watery shine of hazel that was Jade’s gaze. He took a deep breath, eyes wanting to close but staying stuck open and dry and stinging. “I started the apocalypse.”


	13. Chapter 13

If anyone was familiar with the concept of guilt, it was Dean Winchester. After all, he’d been fucking his baby brother for the better part of two years. That was a surefire ingredient for a guilt salad if Dean ever saw one. Dean was, at the moment, currently standing in front of a refrigerated aisles full of salad, and although there weren’t salads of the guilt variation, there were salads of every other variation. Seeing as Jade’s list contained the unclear item, “bagged salad,” Dean was fairly overwhelmed by the fifty different kinds of bagged salad he was ogling in Whole Foods. 

He stared, eyebrows heavy and crumpled under his creased brow. So far he’d successfully found and gathered most of the requirements, including three containers of Seitan, one box of wheat crackers, one package of Follow Your Heart vegan cheese, and around ten varied cans of lentils and beans and olives and whatnot. He still had a few items to find, but he had been stuck at the salad for a good five minutes. Inevitably, when faced with a any amount of time to let his mind wander, it wandered to the guilt salad. 

Seeing as last night, Dean indulged upon the main ingredient, this thought process was three times as speedy. 

Dean’s eyes glazed over, mind getting lost halfway between the Baby Lettuce and the Arugula. The various hues of green blended together, tear-smudged and muddy and then Dean was thinking of Sam, Sammy his little brother forcing his back to the wall and this mouth to his ear and begging, _begging_ for him again. Begging for things to go back to the way things were before Ruby, before the demon blood and the mess that Dean returned to after hell. 

And he had done it. He had given in, his will broken as he caved and fell apart under Sam’s palms. He forgot all his strength, all his mental preparation and pep talks trying to convince himself that Sam needed to be punished, Sam needed to sit in the corner and think about what he’d done. Dean couldn’t give into the carnal side of wanting his brother because that would be hurting himself, one more bullet point added to the massive list of things that Dean Winchester did to hurt himself. He thought he’d stay firm on this point, he thought they’d stay just brothers until they trusted each other fully again.

Apparently, Dean had the will power of a sixteen year old on his first date, because all Sam had done was ask him for it again, all Sam had done was put him against the wall and that was it. That was all it took for Dean to crumble, all the persuasion it took for Dean to jump headfirst into fucking himself over again. Dean dug his teeth into his lower lip, grinding the tissue raw to a metallic flavor, his jaw tight and pained with the force of hating his own will or lack thereof. 

There was that issue of course, but in addition to that, there was the glaringly obvious, never faltering issue that arose every time this happened. Dean could easily push away his own pain, guilt, shame, what have you. He always did. Fucking himself over was completely secondary to Sam if Sam was hurt, if Sam was _anything._ Dean had gotten over the incest thing time and time again...he had to, it was his life and he was living it that way, but the gut wrenching starkness of the phrase, _you’re fooling around with your baby brother_ would never lose its impact. 

Dean’s job, Dean’s _existence_ wasn’t hunting monsters, not really. It was protecting Sammy, it was being a big brother. That was _why_ he hunted the monsters. That was why he did everything, why he found the strength to breathe in and out every morning when all he ever did in his waking hours was to find new and inventive ways to hurt himself. Protecting Sam was everything, and if he didn’t dedicate his life to that, he didn’t _have_ a life. 

This was why it was difficult for Dean to justify fucking Sam half the time. This was way Sam was the one who fucked Dean, half the time. It was all because there aren’t a hell of a lot of ways to factor _sleeping with_ your baby brother into _risking your life to protect_ him. Dean heard all the things Sam told him, _you do this because you love me, I want you to, I need you to, I want it just as bad, Dean please..._ Dean heard all of that, but believing it was a different story. 

He needed to possesses Sam in every way, he knew that. He knew that in order to fully recognize himself as Sam’s and vice versa, in order to be his _brother_ as best he could, he needed to have all of him, every part of him. Even this part. Still, it was hard to swallow some days, it was hard to believe that it wasn’t just this fucked up perverted part of himself trying to justify and explain it as an extension of his soul consuming brotherly love. Some days Dean couldn’t make himself believe that having that part of Sam did more than hurt himself, hurt them both. 

On those days, though, if he couldn’t make himself believe it, Sam usually could. Dean reminded himself this as he imagined Sam’s mouth sliding along his throat, begging him to try and fix things. To let him in. He hung onto the solitary point of knowledge that he was happier this morning than he had been in months, in a whole year perhaps and that had to count for something. Dean shivered, the wind-chapped, scarred skin of his arms pebbled with gooseflesh as he became suddenly aware of the refrigerated air in the salad aisle. 

Before Dean knew it, he was staring at too many salad bags again. He shook his head, disgruntled and still salad-less. He flipped open his phone, thinking automatically to call his brother but knowing Sam wouldn’t know any better than he would. He sighed, shaking his head as he scrolled through his contacts for Davey, realizing the best way to go about this would inevitably be to call the vegan himself. 

Davey answered the phone on the first ring, voice wet and heavy like fog. “Hullo?” He said thickly, clearly newly awoken. Dean cut straight to the chase.   
“Sam made me his errand boy and I’m at this expensive ass hippy place buying food for you picky bastard.” He said gruffly.   
“Hi Dean, good morning,” Davey snapped, slowly coming to. “I haven’t slept for like, two days and you just interrupted my first full night in awhile, but whatever, it’s cool. What do you need?” 

“Well, _princess_ , if you want to go back to your _beauty sleep_ , I can just _not_ buy you a goddamn salad.” Dean said this too loud, and Whole Foods shoppers were glaring at him, most likely mistaking the conversation as some marital tiff. Dean cringed, reluctant to be Davey’s assumed husband or some shit.   
“Oh, you’re daunted by the salad. It happens. Just get spinach, okay?” Davey said before yawning audibly, static crackling on the phone. Dean grabbed a couple bags of spinach, tossing them in the cart. “You got it Captain Vegan.”  
“Thanks errand boy.” Davey’s voice was deadpan,. 

Dean hung up and headed to the check out line, balls two sizes smaller and pride too damaged to even purchase himself a organic pie for the road. 

~*~

Jade’s mouth fell open, tip of this tongue pressed to the uneven surface his teeth made. He stared at Sam, attempting to gauge the sincerity of this declaration, although he could’t imagine why someone would joke about that. Sam was smiling faintly, in this sad and resigned fashion that sent daggers of ice into Jade’s gut. “Seriously?” he finally choked out, and Sam’s eyes slid shut, the tight shape of his mouth twitching and softening. He didn’t say anything; Jade’s voice quieted. 

“How?” He finally asked. He didn’t want to meet Sam’s eyes, the two sloshing bits of Amber regret across the table from him. “Just so you know, I’m not sitting over here thinking ‘oh, he’s to blame for all of this.’ You’re my friend now, people make mistakes.” Jade’s mouth dried up as he said this, a desert erupting in him as the fact sunk in, one man and the whole world’s fate at his hands. 

“Doesn’t matter how,” Sam responded, his voice heavy, almost too low to hear. “what matters is that I’m going to stop it.” There was a firm assurance to his words, his jaw clenched and eyes hardening to a glassy surface. “Dean and I are going to kill the devil in California. Save the world.” He laughed a little, shaking his head. “You know, I never meant for this to happen. I thought I was _stopping_ the apocalypse, but I ended up jumpstarting the thing. I should have trusted my brother...but I got double crossed. Played.” 

“Is that why you guys are so...” Jade started, but trailed off, not quite sure he knew what word he was looking for, not quite sure _how_ Sam and Dean were towards each other. They had the air about them of two people trying ti fix something, trying to hold together the shattered pieces of a once-once whole relationship. Sam’s gaze flew up to him and locked in with biting force, flashing and calculated.   
“I’m still paying for it, if that’s what you mean.” He said darkly, and it was Jade who looked away this time. 

“Did you mean to? I mean, was it an accident?” Jade said awkwardly, hating the way he phrased it. He was trying hard not to be accusatory, but his defenses were up. He wondered for the hundredth time if he’d ended up on the wrong side, if Sam and Dean were really to be trusted. 

“Of course it was an accident. That’s what I said, I was double crossed.” Sam’s voice was bitter, but the scathing poison burning at its edges wasn’t directed at Jade, not really anyway. Jade pressed forward timidly, upturning things hidden in shadows like someone exploring an attic, dusting off antiques and afraid of what he might find there. He wanted to trust Sam. He told him _his_ secrets, after all. “Who double crossed you?” he asked carefully. Sam let out a trapped huff of air, rubbing calloused digits at his temple. 

“A demon. I should have known better than to trust her but... Dean was gone. I had to place faith in _someone_ ,” he said darkly. There was timber in his voice and fire in his eyes, a smoldering darkness alight with sooty colors like a handful of colored newsprint burning. The fury was directed inward, Jade could tell. He knew what self-loathing looked like, he knew the scent of regret. “I mean, I had _no one_. I convinced myself joining forces with her would help, and she was a good actress...and this is what happened. Fucked over the only person I ever loved when he died for me, and sent the world into a nosedive. Endangered people like you.” Sam laughed humorlessly, shaking his head to the sound of bitter air being forced through his lungs. “I keep thinking I’ve forgiven myself, but then here I am.” His eyes slid shut, and silence sprung up between them like a leak, flooding the room.

Finally, Jade remembered how to use his mouth. The words came out cramped and tight like his hand writing, too many lines and angles.“You know, I think Dean’s forgiven you, if you’re worried about that,” he said abruptly, sensing where the brunt of Sam’s guilt lay in his mistake. Not in the apocalypse, not in people like Jade and Davey and how he may or may not have fucked over the planet, handed it over the devil. Not in that. Jade sensed that Sam’s guilt lay in Dean, lay in betraying his brother, and _that_ was what fueled that self-loathing fire pit in his eyes. After all, Jade had pretty much come to realize that the Winchester brothers did every good, monster-killing truth, justice, and the American Way motivated deed for each other, whether they realized it or not. Sam’s gaze was absent, fixed on a far away point in the room, anywhere but Jade’s searching eyes. 

“You know, if you’d said that before yesterday I would have called bullshit. But to be honest, he may not have forgiven me, but he’s trying,” Sam said this tentatively, as if uttering it would take away its truth. 

“I guess now it’s just forgiving yourself, right?” Jade asked. Sam scoff-laughed in response, a choked, cynical noise that meant, _That’s the hard part_. Jade knew this, knew it from his own experience. 

He drummed his fingers upon the tabletop and waited for Sam to say something, which he eventually did, after a few silent moments of heavy, tacit understanding: “You know, you don’t have to stay. There are busses going cross country, it’ll cost a lot but they’re moving faster and more directly than Dean and I. I understand not wanting to travel with the guy responsible for this mess,” he said quietly. 

Jade sat still and thought about it, thought about his brother and his house and Marissa. He thought about Liberty Ohio, and why the fuck he was here seeking out shape shifters with the man who brought about the end of days. Why he hadn’t hopped on the first bus home, dragged Davey and his good gun-arm with him. Still, he remained silent, regarding Sam with a salt-loaded rifle in his lap, soot grey newsprint like smudges darkening his fingers. He thought about Davey sleeping in the next room, acting like this whole ordeal was another vacation, another city, another tour date. He thought about home. 

“I wouldn’t blame you,” Sam said, nearly a taunt. A key in an unfolded palm, his eyes one shade away from being plaintive. 

“I don’t blame you, either.” Jade said after a long while, tonguing the backs of his teeth again, the familiar taste of coffee still lingering. _I don’t blame you. For placing faith in someone, for messing up. I know what its like to make mistakes._ His hand involuntarily tightened along the barrel of the rifle, this foreign weight, frightening in his hand. “But I’ll talk to Dave. I’ll think about it.” 

Sam nodded, and offered his huge, rough-knuckled hand across the table for Jade to shake, which he did so without hesitating. “I don’t blame you.” Jade repeated, and the amber of Sam’s eyes darkened and softened if only the slightest amount. Jade put the rifle on the table and sat up then, knowing it was time to leave Sam to his guns, to himself and his brother.

The long, near painful walk to his room found him lead-footed. By the time Jade returned to his motel room, dread sat heavy and sinking in his intestines, sliding between the folds of his organs and poisoning the tender flesh. His hands were dirty as he opened the door, guarded against the very real possibility of finding Davey in any number of ways, none of which would be pleasant. Davey’s bad days often outnumbered his good days; He might be depressed and quiet and detached, pushing Jade away and rejecting the tentative sweeps of his searching hands, or he might be irritable and hurt, lashing out at Jade for reasons deeper than face value, four year old reasons. Jade could never tell, and as he let himself in, he prepared himself for the worse. 

Davey was awake, fully dressed and hair still damp from the shower. Jade stood dumbstruck for a few seconds, muted horribly by the worm of panic that thrashed up his throat, closing around his trachea and rooting its teeth in like he was swallowing needles. Davey’s tired, worn face was almost intolerably handsome, lined and only slightly flushed around the cheeks and neck from too-hot water, the scalding near-painful showers that Davey always came back from lightheaded. Jade didn’t speak, eyes wide with the still shocking knowledge he was in love with Davey, still _enslaved_ by it, this external force he could neither turn away from nor fully give himself over to because of the sheer force of it, the sheer size. 

“Hey you,” Davey said gently, a a soft smile that wasn’t quite present in his mouth showing itself in quiet, careful degrees in creases around his eyes. Jade was startled by his soft tone, the way he said “you” which was always meant affectionately, tenderly. He watched him shut the laptop, his full attention diverted. “How was your morning?” He asked then, and something fell apart inside Jade, washed to pieces by the wave of relief, the tide of panic ebbing away from the fierce clutch it had in his insides. 

“Interesting,” Jade admitted, dropping his room key onto the bed and approaching Davey, who stood to greet him. He smelled like shampoo and aftershave and toothpaste, squeaky clean and familiar, the scent of home overwhelmingly nostalgic. Jade’s throat tightened as he embraced Davey, who felt too thin as he buried his face in Jade’s neck, inhaling exhaustedly, like he’d been waiting for this, counting on Jade coming back. 

“Miss me or something?” Jade asked quietly, rubbing his hands up the ladder of Davey’s spine, each individual vertebrae like something he could climb back to the life he remembered. Davey had been losing weight; this was always the first sign that something was wrong, that a storm was brewing and beginning just under the calm placid waters of Davey’s well constructed veneer of competence. “Or something,” Davey mumbled into Jade’s shoulder, stubble scratchy and comforting. 

Jade carded his hands through Davey’s wet hair, shifted his body closer until all the familiar planes and angles connected and settled into each other, locked into their rightful locations. Jade realized for the billionth time, with his lips in Davey’s wet hair, that when he thought of home it wasn’t LA, is wasn’t Berkeley, it wasn’t his apartment or Davey’s house or the house they shared all those years ago, or the separate houses they lived in now... it wasn’t even California. It was here, wherever here may be, wherever Davey may be. Jade exhaled exhaustedly, air hissing out from between his teeth and making his body sag into Davey’s. They held each other up for a long time. 

Finally Jade released him, hands still fisted in his hair, cradling the back of Davey’s skull. He could feel Davey’s heart beating huge and red and bleeding and sore in his chest, and its resounding beat thundered an echo in his own chest, reminding him of how good it felt to feel, feel anything. To feel that Davey felt. Sometimes Jade forgot Davey was human, forgot he was scared too. He was saying this before he even realized it was leaving his mouth, sort of awed and bowled over and stunned, his voice falling out around the words, “Sometimes I forget you’re human.” 

Davey’s eyes widened, mouth quirking up in one clever corner. “Well,” He said, interlocking his fingers behind Jade’s neck, the place they always went to when they were alone. Jade could feel him beginning to brush his comment off, pulling away in this internal way that made Jade hold him closer, pull him inwards. 

“Why was your morning so interesting?” Davey finally asked, abandoning his brief moment of resistance and relaxing into Jade again. He was abnormally clingy, not what Jade expected from him this morning, even though they had fucked last night. This was an indicator, like his newfound thinness, that something was wrong. Jade was almost relieved to see any glimpse of Davey’s vulnerability because it meant he could take care of him, figure out the puzzle that was Davey’s fear and put it together, find the key to open that maze of locks. He wanted _in,_ wanted to get his hands dirty and punch them through Davey’s softened ribcage up to the elbow and search for the answers. “Jade?” Davey’s voice, low and mumbled, yanked him back down from his reverie. 

“I just...I talked to Sam a lot. Learned some stuff about him...you know, he’s an interesting guy...” Jade mused, not really wanting to go into the details of Sam’s apocalyptic nature. He sighed, desperate for more of the quiet, easy comfort of Davey being present, Davey needing him. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll tell you about it later,” Jade dismissed, sliding his hands down Davey’s narrow back and kneading the small of it. “Last night was good,” he declared perhaps too firmly, and Davey laughed against him, the vibration of it wracking through both of them. 

“I’m glad you thought so too,” Davey said with an odd, bemused smile, finally letting go of Jade. “I just talked to Dean this morning...apparently he’s shopping for me. Nice guy.” He said dryly, stretching. 

“Yeah, Sam needed to get him out of the room this morning, so I gave him a list.” Jade explained. “Speaking of food, or lack thereof, you’re looking sick.” Jade said this with sincerity, looking critically at the way Davey’s white Placebo shirt hung off of him alarmingly, too much fabric gathering over too little man. Davey grimaced, a grimace that replaced the phrase, _I still have work to do_ , which was his usual response to anyone’s comment on how thin he was looking, how much weight he’d lost. Jade had stopped telling Davey he looked thin years ago, instead substituting _sick_ so he could try and knock some sense into Davey and Davey’s tendency to shrink considerably whenever there was the right combination of external stressors. 

“I haven’t had a hell of a lot of options...” Davey trailed off, collapsing in the chair Jade had found him in and opening his laptop, searching for something to change the subject. “I found out where the blogger kid lives...got directions to his house down to the .03 miles. The internet is a creepy place.” He declared, holding his his hand and beckoning for Jade to come closer, look at whatever he’d opened on the screen. Jade hesitated, wanting to push the weight loss matter, ask Davey is he was okay with the fact they hadn’t been able to go to the gym since the whole apocalypse issue. Jade knew that normal people didn’t care about the gym when the world was ending, but Davey wasn’t normal people. This was part of why Jade loved him, so the point he intended to make was rather superfluous. He let it go, at least for now, and met Davey at his side, hand coming to close protectively at the back of his neck.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because none of my stories are complete unless Davey Havok goes a little crazy.

It wasn’t until that night that it all hit Davey, and he lost it. He’d thought he had it together, he really did. That afternoon was remarkably productive, when Dean brought him his food he exchanged the seitan for Blogger Kid’s address, and after a gruff, only half-reluctant thank you, Sam and Dean were off to investigate, leaving Davey and Jade to their own devices. These devices included bicep curls with the free weights Davey brought everywhere with him in the event he couldn’t find a gym, and a quick jog around Liberty while Jade called him a geek and played with his electronic music programming computer thing, which was far geekier than fitness in Davey’s opinion. 

Things had been good, controlled. They had sex the night before, and maybe if he was lucky and kept his madness at bay for a few more days, they might have sex tonight. Unfortunately, Davey overestimated his ability to delude himself and everyone else, and sometime around eight fifty three PM, he lost his shit, crashed and burned. And to think, he didn’t even know the breaks had stopped working before he found himself a crumpled mess of chrome and smoking rubber and metal. This was how it went: 

It all started when he noticed Jade looking at him too hard, Jade’s warm calculating brown eyes pudding soft and dark around the edges as he watched Davey from the bed. Davey was on the floor doing sit ups when he noticed the gentle, searching quality of Jade’s gaze closing in on him like humidity, a sudden cloying weight forcing the fine hairs along Davey’s strained neck to slide delicately to attention. It made him feel nervous, invaded. Like a formaldehyde injected frog, split scalpel clean along the gut and pinned to a rubber tray. When Jade looked at him that way, regardless of how silver-lined and sweet his intentions may be, it felt like labeled pins spearing through all of Davey’ organs, explaining his anatomy in horrifically clinical detail. Gal bladder. Spleen. Pancreas. Heart. He ignored the burn in his abs, sitting up abruptly. 

“You wanna take a picture? Am I cute when I work out or something?” Davey joked, trying hard to make this flippant, to divert Jade’s evident and quite understandable concern away from him and back to his electronic music crap. Jade smiled, looking down and shrugging. 

“You’re just far away. You wanna quit doing crunches and come talk to me?” He asked, studying his feet in this way that made Davey think he wasn’t confident in taking care of him anymore, that he didn’t know if he was doing it right. Davey’s heart broke for him on that distant level of comprehension, but the feeling of the torn flesh was entirely secondary to two more important responses Jade’s comment brought about in him, which reared their snarling heads too far in front of anything else for Davey to manage such a complex emotion as empathy: 

1\. Jade wanted to talk. This meant he was going to call the troops and invade Poland, pillaging and burning until there was nothing left, and the last time Davey let him do this he didn’t even question that he might be laying his neck across a guillotine and _he_ was the one who ended up a too-trusting husk of a country, shrunken and wasted and charred. Davey didn’t want to talk, he didn’t think it was safe anymore, not really, anyway. 

2\. Jade wanted him to stop working out, and working out was imperative to his sanity and full functioning capabilities right now. Without realizing it, Davey had slipped into that dangerous, precarious state of mind where interrupting his routine could potentially induce utter panic, because he’d rationalized these crunches to hell and back again. At this point, whether he logically knew it was nonsense or not, these crunches were so important that his safety, as well as Jade’s, in regards to the end of times and the Devil and the ghosts and shape shifters and whatever else, were dependent upon these crunches, and he was only two thirds of the way through and Jade didn’t understand this. 

 

But because Davey was aware that the way he thought was almost always insane and rarely rooted in fact or logic, and it was usually best to push it aside and listen to Jade because it really didn’t matter if he did four sets of twenty or three sets of twenty crunches, the world was still ending, Davey said, “Yeah, yeah of course. Sure.” He should have known by the shrill, breathy way his voice sounded that it wasn’t as okay as he thought it was, he wasn’t as fully convinced of his madness to believe Jade fully. 

This divide between Davey’s reality and the real-world reality was often what caused him to lose it, what caused the crash and burn. He ignored this insight, however, and ripped himself away from the floor, mechanically making his legs walk to Jade, making himself sit down next to him on the bed. Its springs creaked weakly underneath his added weight, reminding him of things he didn’t need to think about, not right now. Things as simple as beds and weight. Jade touched his hand, eyes as big and dark and warm as coffee with no cream. “Hey,” he said gently, and Davey tried to make his voice enough to ground him, enough to send talons into the flesh of reality and keep him there. Still, his body itched to move back to the floor, to put his back on the carpet and work his abs. 

“You okay?” Jade asked, and the way he said it proved he knew the answer, and he didn’t want Davey to lie. He wanted Davey to open up. Davey felt like he’d tripped down a well without even realizing it, and was sitting at the wet, silt-muddy bottom waist deep in brackish water while he gazed helplessly up at that tiny circle of light, a halo surrounding Jade as he called down to him. He wanted to climb up the sides, he really did, but they were slippery and he was weak and maybe if he did that final set of four crunches the length would shorten. 

“No,” Davey said quietly, trying to calm his nerves the way the various shrinks had taught him. Deep breaths. Making saliva in his mouth. Pretending he was a tree, rooted to the earth. He squeezed Jade’s hand, aware his own was sweating. 

“I know,” Jade sighed, shifting subtly closer to Davey, whose head dropped, brow pressed to Jade’s bony shoulder. He impulsively tongued the cotton of Jade’s shirt, and it smelled and tasted strange, like suitcases and hotels and sweat and tour, not like Jade. He mouthed over to the bare skin of his collar bone, pressing his tongue flat to the raw, salty warmth to remind himself of Jade’s humanity. His mortal, carnal, corporal reality. Davey forgot this side of humans existed, because he loathed it so much in himself. 

“I’m nervous. I’m trying to distract myself,” Davey explained, voice muffled and quiet into Jade’s skin. He let his teeth graze the pulse, reminding himself that everyone had the same anatomy, everyone could be run through with pins and labeled for science class. “Tell me a story or something. Just talk to me,” Davey asked, trying to lie down but noticing it hurt too badly, made his organs feel cramped and tight and rebelling, so he sat up again, hands flat on his stomach. Jade cocked his head, a line of worry creasing his forehead, but he just nodded. 

“Okay. Um...remember before we admitted we wanted each other, and instead we’d just share a bed unnecessarily for like, six months? I’d come write songs on your bed, and we’d play games, and I wouldn’t really leave. Our excuse was that it was ‘too cold’ to trek back to my own room, or that there was...” 

“...too much shit on your bed. Like you couldn’t just move it or something,” Davey completed the sentence, a fond smile finding its way to his lips. After the breakup, these memories were always so difficult to stomach, but they were only just now becoming safe territory. He looked to Jade’s eyes, wrenching his own gaze away from the dreary, faded floral print of the bedspread. He did remember sharing a bed for too long to be normal, he did remember the dumb excuses that seemed so obvious now that they weren’t kids. He remembered every little stupid thing, even if he didn’t want to.

“Yeah, we were dumb. But we fooled everyone. Even ourselves,” Jade said, voice patchy and dark like an unlighted room with one broken window for sun to filter through, painting bleached floorboards in something familiar and golden. Davey tried to soak it up, keep himself from the grey parts. 

“Not entirely. Maybe you were fooled, but I wasn’t. I knew what was up,” Davey reminded Jade, forcing himself to not flinch as Jade traced up his arm, fingers brushing intimately under the shirt sleeve on his shoulder. Davey shivered, craving contact while he simultaneously feared it. Jade was nodding, head down and gaze thoughtful. “Yeah, well I’m here now, right?” Jade said meaningfully as his eyes moved to hold Davey’s, firm and challenging. This was one of his hundred heartfelt apologies for leaving, one of his hundred admissions to a mistake. One of his hundred _it always took me a little longer than you, but I’m paying my reparations, aren’t I?_

Davey took a deep breath, letting Jade touch him, letting his rough fingers skate patterns across his twitching arms. “So what did Sam and you talk about this morning?” Davey brought this up tentatively, trying to ignore his overwhelming urge to jerk into an upright position, pull away, return to the floor and his sit ups. 

“A lot of things. He opened up to me, it was weird...I mean he seems like this big, angry closed off guy but really he just wants to fix shit with Dean. He and I have way too much in common for how different we are.” Jade’s long fingers paused their almost irritatingly gentle skitter across Davey’s skin, hesitating and pressing with intent, like his thoughts were causing his hands to operate free of his will. 

“Stuff in common? Are you gonna start wearing flannel and looking pissed off all the time?” It was a joke, but Davey delivered it weakly. Jade laughed anyway, a fake, crystalline laugh like glass breaking across a granite counter top, clean and even and measured. Davey’s entire body was itching, even tendon and ligament taut and rippling as longing for the coarse, faintly smoke-smelling rub of the carpet against his lower back. His muscles and bones were singing for it, begging to be pulled hard and tight in his stomach as he crunched. Bending his body in two was imperative right now; there were a million reasons why. So many he didn’t even have time to conceive all of them. 

“Are you listening to me?” Davey heard Jade say, sure something was preceding it, but not sure what. Clearly he hadn’t been listening, although he couldn’t recall deciding to tune out. “Sorry,” He mumbled, closing his eyes for the count of three and opening them again, only to find Jade’s face mere centimeters away, denting the same pillow as Davey’s. He could feel Jade’s breath warm on his own lips, he could make out the smallest nuances of age that had only made themselves apparent within the last year, perhaps the last six months, even. He could feel himself shrinking under the honey gold, too intense, too searching sweep of Jade’s eyes, the ice crystals formulating around parts deep inside of him. 

“Talk to me, Dave,” Jade said firmly, something twitching beside his mouth. “What are you thinking about?” There was the begging sound again, the sound that scared the shit out of him. The sound that said, _I know you better than you know yourself, I know what you’re doing. I know how you work, how the way you work breaks you down and stops you from functioning, what you want and what you keep yourself from having. I know, so give it up. Lay it down, let me in. Please._

It was the please that muted Davey every time, held his tongue and forced him to involuntary, crippling silence. The please eliminated every possibility of Davey opening his mouth and admitting, _I’m thinking about the fourth set of twenty crunches you’re keeping me from doing and its integral place in my sanity, and your safety._

Instead of telling the truth, Davey bit at the vacancy his lip ring used to possess out of force of habit and said, “I’m trying to talk. I’m trying to stay here, Jade, I...” and then he got choked up, a hot angry wetness springing unexpectedly to his eyes, startling him to a half-gasp. Jade was scooting closer across the bed, putting his lips at Davey’s hairline and mumbling, “I know, I know, s’okay Dave,” while Davey tried to keep his breathing normal, tried to keep his limbs in place. 

“Why’re you so freaked out?” Jade was mostly muttering a lot but Davey made this out, answering even he wasn’t sure if it was a rhetorical question.   
“Dunno. Lots of stuff. Lots of shit. The end of the world.” Without eye contact it was easier to say these things, if it came out mechanically without connection or attachment.   
“Good reason.” 

“I’m not scared. I’m scared that I’m _not_ scared.” Davey didn’t know if this made sense or if it was even fully true, but as he said it, the grip on his vocal cords loosened minimally, and he took the break in the tension to swallow frantically. He paused, counting the heartbeats of Jade’s pulse thundering against his lips.   
“It’s okay to be scared. I’m fucking terrified, you know?” Jade said, voice box moving comfortingly along the length of Davey’s face, scraping his nose and cheek.   
“I know,” he managed. Jade was quiet for awhile, just this steady breathing rhythm and the smell of home, the smell that reminded Davey of mornings ten years ago, when he’d roll over and elatedly smell the pillow they shared when Jade went to the bathroom to piss in the morning. Davey was beginning to think he might survive skipping the fourth set of twenty crunches when Jade said:  
“I’m here, you know. If you’re going down, I’m going down with you.”

Davey didn’t know if this made him feel better, or if it scared him worse than the apocalypse. 

There was a fierce lump in his throat, quieting him again as Jade’s shirt-sleeve became damp and hot with his eyes, but he didn’t quite feel like he was actually crying, just leaking, maybe. He inhaled raggedly, and nodded, counting in disjointed sets of three and ten, some of which were punctuated by Jade’s breath, some of which weren’t. Underneath everything, however, he could feel the small, glowing, half-shattered fragment of truth that often got buried amongst the rubble: he loved Jade, loved him hard and undying and relentlessly. He let himself feel that for the split second it took to kiss Jade’s collarbone, one solitary press of his chapped lips. Jade sighed briefly in response, sounding like starved man just offered food. A sigh of _please, anything._

They lay quietly together, Jade’s breath held for a second kiss that never came. Finally he said in a tired voice, “When I talked to Sam this morning, he offered the option for us to bail, take a bus home. What do you think?” he asked gently, fingers threading through the back of Davey’s hair, a comforting weight on his skull silently assuring in a half-lie _it’s alright. That was enough._

“Why? Aren’t we going home with them?” Davey answered, only partially aware of what this all meant. It felt good to talk about something physical, something real. He latched onto it like a vine striving towards the sun, working himself through the shadows desperately.

“Yeah, but they’re not driving along a direct route. Taking a Greyhound would be faster. Only thing is, no one knows what’s going on but them. The whole apocalypse thing hasn’t really come to fruition...in the event that it does, if we stuck with them we’d be with professionals.” Jade explained. “It’s up to you.” 

Davey wanted to beg Jade to make the decision himself because he didn’t care. Today was bad, sure, and the entire weight of his existence rested on twenty sit ups, but tomorrow might be better. If it wasn’t, the next day would be, and all this distance and insanity and obsession and disease would be buried with the rest of it and Davey would go on about his merry way, working out and learning to shoot and insulting Dean Winchester. He had bad days, but he had good days too, and just because he might be in a wreck now didn’t mean he’d walk away from it whole, a few bruises, perhaps, but otherwise unscathed. He didn’t care where this process occurred, whether it was in the back of the Impala, or on a bus. 

“Dave?” 

“I’ll go look at bus schedules,” He decided, for no other reason than it gave him something mechanical and removed and safe to do. Something real. A computer plugged into a solid wall, anything to wrench him away from this deceitfully wonderful embrace, warm and invasive and smelling like his pillow ten years ago, on a bed they shared for no fucking good reason at all. 

~*~

Davey sat shivering at the computer, not exactly cold but skin crawling with gooseflesh regardless as he hammered away on the keyboard, bringing the screen to slow life. His mind was embracing the solitary, gripping fact that he had a task to complete: Check out bus schedules and compare departures times, costs, and locate the nearest station. If he did this, he didn’t have to talk to Jade, he didn’t have to open up, he didn’t have to _think._ All he had to do was type words into google and click through websites. 

He was vaguely aware of Jade standing behind him, his hands hesitant presences on the back of the chair wishing they could rest easily on his shoulders, move there thoughtlessly. None of the ways Jade touched him were thoughtless when Davey was in this state, and that knowledge would have hurt him if he was capable of feeling hurt under such circumstances. He wasn’t, however, because that was the whole _point_. To protect himself. To keep from hurting. 

The internet was infuriatingly slow right now, and Davey checked the wireless connection to make sure everything was working correctly. Supposedly it was, and he huffed lightly, frustrated and frantic, even though this was a minor inconvenience. Sensing his tension, Jade tentatively asked, “What’s up? The link isn’t working?” 

Davey nodded, furrowing his brow as he clicked another link on the greyhound station’s website. He already gave up on the Peter Pan website; all the links were broken. “Yeah, the sites are slow or not working at all. I thought the wireless was fucked up, but....huh...” He chewed on his lip, the familiar whorls of scar tissue tasting particularly metallic. “The Greyhound site says there’s no departure times. None at all, everything’s just empty.” 

“Lemme see,” Jade leaned over Davey from behind, hovering there as his hand came to mess around on the laptop mouse, scrolling up and down. If Davey wasn’t borderline freaking out, or if this had been five years ago, his chin would have naturally dropped to Davey’s shoulder, drifting there as if on instinct. Now he held it centimeters above, a world of tension crackling in that vacant space like static electricity, keeping them from touching for too long. The contrived nature of their physical contact ached sore and dull and muted in Davey, this years old ache he wished he was over by now.

“The buses aren’t running,” Jade declared, hand dropping away from the computer to rub at his face, exhausted and nervous. “They’ve shut down entirely, the closest working bus is in Virginia, and that’s the wrong direction.” He declared this like it was nothing but a fact, a simple and readily explained inconvenience. Not what it really was, which was a hole blown through Davey’s last connection to reality. His breathing was coming faster now, voice climbing as he said, “Why are they all shut down?! There’s no reason for all the busses to suddenly stop running in the middle of the year...” He knew his voice sounded too shrill, and he placed one palm open flat on either side of the laptop, pressing down so his arms locked. 

“There’s plenty of reasons, Dave. The apocalypse, for one...the fire storms? The croats? When was the last time you watched the news? We don’t know how many areas have been quarantined, maybe the bus routes have been...”Jade started explaining this all, and Davey started shutting down, his world closing in on him like fire-hot walls, and he was being forced to choose the Pit or the Pendulum. He heard himself choking out, “Oh my god...” imagining himself being the ever-strong, level headed guy Jade kept himself upright with, the one who held Jade’s hair from his brow while he puked out the side of the Impala. He pictured himself at the shooting range, joking about the devil, finding cases for Sam and Dean and just _swallowing_ this whole thing. 

Only now did he realize it was choking him, it had been choking him the whole time. 

He’d _killed_ something with a pistol. Davey was so, so fucking far away from home and only now did the distance hit him, stretch out before him like his impossible expanse of territory uncharted, no planes, no busses, just more and more diseased people and the Devil in California. Davey stood up abruptly, head in his hands. “Fuck, how’re we gonna get home?!’” he said in a thin voice, suddenly panicked, breath coming out in short, heavy pants.

Jade backed away. His next move was crucial, either what would bring Davey back down to earth and back into his body, or what would send him toppling over the edge, falling headlong into a panic attack. “Dave,” he said carefully, holding his hands out like a Animal Control approaching a rabid dog. “Dave you gotta calm down. You’re working yourself up.” He kept his voice even, but no matter how calm he sounded, Davey was already gone, no longer listening to him. 

“I’ve been such an idiot,” Davey mumbled, pacing manically, hands worrying frantically through his hair, pulling it into nervous upright cowlicks. “How the fuck are we going to get home?! We’re going to die in fucking Ohio, Jade,” he said suddenly, eyes flashing and blown wide and black, maddened as they locked on Jade’s. “We’re gonna die here.” 

“We’re not gonna die, Dave, come on,” Jade begged, closing in on Davey’s taut, electrified, near-hyperventilating body. He wasn’t cut out for this, not when he was scared too. Not when Davey wouldn’t _let him_ make it his responsibility. But it was, it would always be, no matter where they stood with each other or what happened. He took a deep breath, choosing to attack just as Davey’s gaze dropped. “Come,” Jade ground out at he grabbed one of Davey’s wrists in each hand, fingers closing tight and painful, feeling tendon and bone underneath grind together. 

Davey was stronger than Jade; he knew he could wiggle out of his grasp and beat the shit out of him if need be. But he couldn’t make himself do _anything_ right now, just stand dumbstruck and bound to Jade, held in his long-fingered clasp struggling minimally. “How’re we gonna get home? I need to get home, I have friends there and I haven’t been able to talk to _anyone about anything_. My family must be freaking the fuck out, and no one knows who we’re with and we’re so far away from home. And who knows if Sam and Dean are really professionals or if they’re just fucking crazy?! You don’t know!” Davey was yelling now, trying to drop to his knees into a protective fetal curl as Jade held him upright, frantic and helpless against Davey’s hysteria. 

“Dave, Dave, you gotta stop. You gotta listen to me, come on,” Jade begged, jamming his knee out to keep Davey up, to prevent him from crumpling to the carpet. Davey tried to listen but couldn’t, knowing he looked ridiculous right now with his eyes wild and wet and huge, lips drawn back around his teeth like a snarling animal threatening to bite. 

He had to get out of here. He had to get home. He had to make the bus stations start running busses again so he could _get_ home, and everything would be normal again. He had to keep crunching. His stomach swam, lurching threateningly up his throat and choking him even more with homesickness and panic. 

“Look at me,” Jade said, and Davey realized this was the third or fourth time he’d said it, ordered eye contact. Davey obeyed, eyes snapping to meet Jade’s, pained and wide. Jade was looking back at him with equal terror, so much concern and love shining back at him, rich and warm and Davey balked for a second at it, stopped fighting. His heart raced but Jade let go of his wrists to instead hold his face, gather him there like a scarf being rolled into a tight little ball, all his loose strings cut and tied. 

“That’s it. That’s it Dave, let me...” Jade mumbled and then Davey was more than leaking, he might have been flat out crying even with the way his face was slicked wet and red and hot, buried in Jade’s throat as his hands shook violently, clutching in Jade’s shirt and hair and wherever he could reach. Davey’s teeth chattered and he rode out the waves of snapping panic that came in lurches through his body like live wires and their promise of electrocution. Jade rode it out with him, hands cradling his face and voice the only solid thing left in the world. 

All the shit that Davey buried under sit-ups and silence was spilling into him, something white hot like mercury burning and smoking out all the poison, if only for now. He choked and choked, couching mouthfuls of snot and tears as Jade said, “That’s it, Dave,” over and over again. 

Davey’s hearing wasn’t always the most reliable thing when he was a mess, but he could swear he’d been hearing these crashes from outside, coupled with the distinct crack and hiss of matches being lit and smoking out. Or maybe that was the smell of ash and sulfur, he couldn’t tell. It had faded into the hysterical din his mind was reduced to right now, but as a particularly resounding crack erupted outside, the door to the hotel room shivered on its hinges, an impact-vibration making his legs ride a tremor. He ignored it, but Jade’s quiet, scared voice said, “what the fuck was that?” 

The lines of their body tensed side by side, mimicking each other as the distant cracks and crashes from the surrounding area gathered and increased, making Davey’s already tense body one immovable slice of terror, solid and barely breathing. “What...” 

They were startled out of their slow-moving silence by a series of frantic knocks on the door, followed by the gruff comment, “No time- Dean- Just-” and then, the door was broken down, a plume of dust, white paint chips, and cheap, splintering wood erupting around The Winchester brothers like stage smoke and strobe lights. Davey stared, eyes stinging and bleary through a tear streaked face. 

“You two! Move it, get packed up, we gotta get out of here asap,” Dean bellowed, a rifle thrown over his shoulder and his green eyes reflecting the fearsome orange light outside. The acrid scent of burning buildings and hair and smoke filtered in like rot, chemical and biting on the air.   
“What’s going on? Croats?” Jade said frantically as Sam blocked the door way with his huge body, squinting against the sooty night. “Worse, demons,” he yelled in a voice raw with ash and ember, and a chill of apprehension and terror running down Jade’s spine.

He went to Catholic school, he knew about fire and brimstone and the devil and demons enough to know you didn’t mess with that shit. Not even a little bit. He released Davey’s damp face, skirting along the edges of the room to gather their stuff and toss it haphazardly into suitcases. Davey backed into the bed, drawing his knees up to his chest and retreating to the dark of his own closed eyelids, breathing labored like a dying man’s. 

“Hurry up!” Dean yelled, pushing past Sam and out the door. Jade thew their shit together as quickly as possible, heart hammering in his chest like it might beat itself right out of his mouth. Sure he was forgetting something, but valuing his life above whatever that something might be, he grabbed Davey around the arm, hauling his catatonic, mostly dead weight to his feet. “Let’s go Dave,” and without another word they were out the door, into a battlefield of fire and smoke, Davey shielding his eyes before he had to witness Dean Winchester firing a rifle at various people, clearing the path for them to get to the Impala for a hopefully safe getaway. 

Davey’s legs were moving like steel rods, impossibly heavy and stiff. Jade cursed, dragging him roughly along. Sam turned and saw Jade struggling under the weight of too much luggage and Davey’s paralysis and wordlessly helped him, taking the bulk of their suitcases in his arms and throwing them into the Impala. This left Jade to tend fully to Davey’s comatose state, his eyes narrowed and glassy, teeth gritted against the bitter, hot wind outside that was reducing Jade’s hair to chaos. Davey must have been in shock, because once they got into the backseat and Dean floored the gas, he dissolved into tremors, his hands jittery and helpless as his entire, wasting-away body shaking like Jade had just pulled him from the snow. 

His teeth rattled together like one of those wind up toys, and he sucked air through them with a hiss, shaking in alarming lurches against Jade’s body. Jade pulled him close as they slid around the back seat dangerously, seeing as Dean was driving like an utter maniac, yelling orders to Sam who was yelling back, nonsense Jade didn’t understand. Dean had rolled the front-seat windows down and was shooting out of them, crowing and laughing in triumph every once in awhile when a bullet hits its target, Jade presumed. He knew he should have been disturbed or at the very least put off by the way Dean Winchester was laughing at death, but he remembered that the guy _had_ died, to the best of his knowledge, and it really wasn’t his place to judge his stance on the subject.Not to mention, he was kind of preoccupied with Davey shaking all over him to care what the fuck Sam and Dean were doing in the front seat, as long as he wasn’t getting caught in the crossfire. 

It took Jade a few moments to realize that underneath all the gunfire, tire skids, and explosion noises, that Davey was mumbling things into his shoulder. He tilted Davey’s chin up, which was wet with drool and left over tear, minor and semi-endearing things that he overlooked in favor of Davey’s words. “What’re you trying to say?” He asked, bracing himself against one side of the Impala’s interior as Dean swerved around a corner madly, sending them all tumbling around inside like fireflies in a jar. 

“We have to leave. We can’t stay here. We can’t stay with them,” Davey chanted, squinting his eyes shut tight against the still fiery, dusty air that was flooding the car through open windows, debris and ash and smoke stinging and coating their throats on every pained inhalation. 

“Dave, everything’s gonna be okay. You just hold onto me, okay? It’s gonna be fine,” Jade said firmly, pressing his lips to Davey’s stubble-rough, tear streaked cheek. That cheek was the home of one hundred kisses Jade used to have but had since given freely, that cheek in all its different levels of smoothness and consistency and wet or dryness. It was as familiar as the map of creases lining Jade’s own palm, as familiar as the inside of his eyelids, a comforting darkness he could feel out even when there was no sun, no light what so ever to show him the way home. He licked Davey’s cheek then from force of habit, this one remaining notion of who he was and where he belonged. He needed to taste it, apply more than just his sense of touch. “It’s gonna work out.” 

“Okay. Okay I believe you.” Davey sighed then, the vibration of his chattering teeth pausing as he pressed his tongue between them, shaking hands seeking out and burying themselves in Jade’s shirtfront, two fists of familiarity in a surrounding firestorm, a strange state. Davey and Jade held each other in the back seat of the Impala while Sam and Dean murdered an onslaught of demons outside, Jade accepted that this was the way it was going to be for the entirety of the trip back to California, come death, or not. 

And surprisingly, swallowing this fact wasn’t half as hard as Jade thought it was going to be. Because come death or not, he had a mouthful of Davey’s hair and there was nothing in the world, even as it ended, that would change that.


	15. Chapter 15

“What the hell was that?” Sam’s voice was shaking when he finally spoke, and though it was quiet it still spooked Dean, making his aching hands tighten and choke together on the steering wheel. It was only then, when Sam shattered the tense silence, that Dean realized he’d been clenching his jaw with a painful intensity. He could almost hear the tendons creaking as he carefully relaxed: a weird electrical sensation only just shy of pain. 

“Dean, you’re pushing 100mph. Take it easy man, we lost them way back,” Sam’s voice again, that earnest note that made something acidic rise in Dean’s throat, a coppery, old metal taste like he’d only just become aware of his senses. And in a way, he had. Dean realized that the last few...minutes? hours? Were completely lost to him, nothing but the endless blur of grey-black highway sprawling out before his front wheels, a narrow world limited to that which the headlights illuminated. He’d forgotten about Sam, about demons, about the end of the world and Davey Havok’s increasingly sporadic and muffled sobs, Jade’s barely audible murmuring. Dean had missed all of that, and suddenly it was all rushing back into him and filling the vacuum, old metal flavor and hunger spit and of course, the forever scent of burning flesh and gritty middle America road air and his brother’s sharp, familiar sweat. 

He eased off the gas if only to pacify Sam, forcing one of his hands off the wheel in spite of the far away apprehension this action rendered in his gut. “What the hell is right,” he croaked through a ashy throat, saying this only because he was vaguely aware it was what he was supposed to say. “Surprise demon ambush outa fuckin’ nowhere. I guess that kid and his shapeshifter are going to have to wait.” He sighed, rubbing at his chin, lips feeling foreign and soft against his palm among all the scratchy stubble growing in. 

“What do you think that was about? Just arbitrary attacks now that Lucifer’s on earth, or something we should look into further?” Sam mused aloud, putting a heavy hand on Dean’s shoulder to slow him down, seeing as the speedometer was still jittering nervously between 90 and 100. Dean flinched but then loosened minimally from the knot he was tied in, shuddering under Sam’s touch in an unchecked, involuntary tremor. 

“Nothing’s arbitrary with these creeps, Sam. It’s the apocalypse. If demons and firestorms magically hit our shitkicking hotel in shitkicking Ohio of all places, I think it means something. It always fucking _does_ ,” he spat it out bitterly, finally breaking the tense glare he’d been casting on the road, gaze fixing on Sam’s shadowed profile, the curved bridge of his nose and the tight, chapped shape of his mouth with its turned down corners and broken promise of salt and blood taste. 

Dean sighed, finding his right hand abandoning its death grip on the wheel and instead reaching for Sam’s thigh, where it clapped down with too-needy force, mauling the hard flesh there. He did it because he needed to touch him, needed to be grounded to some breathing, bleeding symbol for why he did everything he did, why he still needed to keep going. Without being able to help it, he was broken open in the drivers seat, spilling out through his mouth and eyes as they parted and he stared wet-lipped at his brother, bare and raw and naked and needy like he sometimes got with Sam, like he ought to be, shining like the lymph dewy skin under a scab just torn off. There was a moment of mutual, wide eyed breathlessness in which he managed to note that Sam’s skin was still hot to the touch from the fire and chaos they’d left behind in Liberty even under the rough, sooty fabric of his Levis, before Sam was pushing him off with a dark, frantic shock in his eyes. 

“Dean,” was all he said but he jutted his chin subtly towards the backseat, where Davey and Jade curled together like two silent nesting spoons in a drawer Dean had entirely forgotten about until this very second. Maybe years ago, even _months_ ago, Dean’s stomach would have dropped out of the bottom of the car after realizing he’d just let his guard fully down and touched his brother in front of any two humans outside his small, close-quartered world, but years ago, he hadn’t been to hell. Months ago, the world hadn’t been ending. Different kinds of things mattered now, and seeing as Davey and Jade seemed too throughly shaken up to notice anything outside their _own_ close quartered world, he found his heart lifting its head wearily, like an old dog’s tail thumping half-assedly against the floor before settling back down to the sad familiarity of stale fear and stale disappointment. 

He and Sam were silent for a few more miles, and to ease the discomfort at having to listen to Jade and Davey coo at each other like two parakeets in a cage, Dean turned the radio on, static springing up between them like a leak. It was some psychedelic 60’s rock band, and the optimistic, mustard yellow sound of electric guitar cutting through smoke-thick air was so ironically misplaced Sam actually switched it to the tape player, which had _Rat_ of all the ungodly bands in it. The day Sam voluntarily subjected himself to Rat was a dark day, so Dean arched an eyebrow and forced himself to speak, even though his throat felt close to bleeding. 

“Hate the quiet that bad?” He said, voice too low. Sam frowned.   
“It makes you think. I don’t want to think.”  
“There’s not exactly anything good to think about right now, is there?” Dean smiled as he said this, only because it made the words slide easier from his mouth, made the fact easier to swallow if it was delivered with such grace. Sam laughed harshly in response, proving his point. 

“Can you tell the world is ending? And I don’t mean in the obvious, disease outbreaks and firestorms, four horseman biblical shit, either. I mean the way it _feels_ ,” Sam finally said, eyes sweeping the dashboard then coming to rest on Dean with a plaintive darkness to them. Dean swallowed and it stung. He didn’t want to know what Sam was talking about. He wanted to respond with a smirk and incredulity, a snappy _come on Sammy, you’re not in college anymore. Leave that philosophy and theory bullshit back with your textbooks._ But the truth was, the Dean Winchester who would have said and believed that (or, at the very least, convinced himself to believe that) was long since dead and buried. The dry, cracked, half-burnt corn husk he was now _did_ know. 

“Yeah. You can feel it dying, right?” Dean asked, gaze fixed deliberately on the road ahead of him. “...Like...like it’s just crumbling around us, and pretty soon the whole structure’s just gonna collapse into a pile of fuckin’ rubble. And we’ll be buried underneath all of it.” Dean chewed the the inside of his cheek, his whole mouth very suddenly dry. It wasn’t as if he was scared; people like Dean didn’t exactly feel fear in the same way anymore. It was like he was bracing himself for a huge blow, paralyzed and silenced by the breed of gut-twisting apprehension that precedes tremendous physical pain. 

“Exactly. It’s just a ticking time bomb, man. Every day we’re getting closer,” Sam sighed wearily then, shaking his head. “It’s hard to keep that gun-ho, bring it on type of attitude I keep trying to sell.” That bitter, barking laugh again. 

“Can’t always be my cheerleader, Sammy.” Dean said, knowing full well neither of them believed anything the other one said anymore, but also realizing that because they were in the same faithless, leaking boat, they could at least try and take the lies in stride and swallow them in handfuls like placebos. He thought of the lung-crushing weight of Sam’s body on top of his, the jagged, graceless outlines of his arms as he held himself up and fucked into Dean with a slow, filthy burn, holding him down with one huge sure hand splayed on his chest. The sweetest of placebos, Dean thought. The absolute best kind of lies. Maybe they didn’t believe themselves or each other, but essentially it didn’t matter because they were still breathing, still fucking, still driving west. 

“You know, I was wrong,” Dean said abruptly, thumb worrying unconsciously at a groove in the steering wheel he knew by heart. He could feel Sam’s gaze turn and sear into him, traveling along the line of his neck and shoulder, finally stopping to rest on his lips, which Dean licked slowly, deliberately. It was often difficult for him to say exactly what he meant, so he was quiet for another few heartbeats, thinking long and hard for the right words. 

Sam was impatient. “Wrong about what?” 

“That there’s not anything good to think about anymore,” Dean said evenly, voice rough and strangled with swallowed ash, inhaled fire. 

“What’s good then?” Everything about Sam was exhausted, from the deep purple smudges under his eyes to the flatness of his voice. He was waiting for another lie, waiting to swallow another placebo. 

“Well, I was agreeing with you wholeheartedly, but then I thought about you, and what it feels like when we fuck, and then I decided I was wrong.” Dean’s eyes slid oil-smooth from the road to Sam’s bewildered face, the parted mouth and creased forehead. Sam looked like he’d just been hit in the gut, a fish with a hook through its lip flopping around desperately on the deck gasping, gills fluttering. 

Sam snapped his mouth shut eventually, knowing Davey and Jade weren’t listening and hadn’t heard, but still unable to overcome the stomach-turning shock of Dean’s bluntness, Dean’s honest-to-whiskey and guns and pie and other things he found Holy smile. They were quiet save for Rat and the radio, and only after a minute or so of tense but satisfied silence did Sam sputter, “I guess you’re right.” Then, “So where exactly are we going?” 

“I dunno Sammy. I figure I’ll keep driving until I pass out, and then we’ll figure out where we are,” Dean said, voice confident and surefire in this way told Sam there was no arguing with him; he needed to drive, needed the simplicity of two pedals and a wheel and the stretch of sooty highway like a junkie’s vein to follow somewhere far away from home. 

And so Sam closed his mouth and let his brother reside safe in that simplicity. They kept breathing, kept fucking, kept driving west. 

~*~

It was near dawn when Davey woke up- those pale, sunrise-grey hours when everything had a unsprung stillness to it, a coil of icy metal aligned and calm. If Davey ever witnessed a morning this early, it wasn’t usually because he was waking up, it was because he was still awake. He struggled with the foreign feeling of his sticky eyes peeling themselves open, lashes still adhered by dried tears and crystalized salt. He was aching all over, distinctly aware that his face felt swollen and stinging, body skinned and raw and shoved into the corner of the backseat. He uncurled stiffly, cloudy eyes scanning the backseat for Jade like a compass’s needle forever jumping north. 

He found him, surprisingly awake, sitting tight and awkward and exhausted with his eyes trained on the passing scenery out the window, headphones in. Normally if Jade was awake, Davey was too. It was the way their sleeping schedules worked out, it was a result of Davey’s never failing insomnia. However, here was Jade, eyes puffy and sick looking but open all the same, fingers tap-tapping jittery and aware on the face of his ipod. 

“Hey,” Davey’s voice scraped out, and he shuffled painstakingly to Jade, who looked to him wearily and with a faint air of surprise, like he was relieved to find Davey still breathing. Davey instinctually reached for the stringy chunks of hair that fell across his brow, attempting to reassemble it into something solid. Jade smiled pathetically, catching Davey’s wrist and bringing his hand to his own heart, pressing it there. “Good morning,” he mumbled like it hurt to talk.

Davey remembered last night in senses instead of actual chronological memory: merely a jumble of discordant sensations all heaped together and lost in the then sticky, slick junction of Jade’s neck and shoulder, where Davey’s cheek had been pressed for the majority of what he recalled. Now, this morning, his chest kept on shuddering with the half-remembered ghosts of sobs, the aftershocks of his prior vulnerability. It was strange, but he liked that feeling of post tantrum, the remnants of tears muffled by his puddle of mucus and spit, the cotton of Jade’s polo. 

It made him think of an sleeping limb coming back to life, the numbness first giving way to that horrible, tickling pins and needles feeling before the onset of real sensation, of real feeling. Davey spent so much time carefully and self protectively apathetic, numb to everything but resentment and anger, hardened to a tiny, white bitter pill. Sometimes, when he finally broke down that glass shield he built around himself, he realized how long it had been since he’d cried. Since he’d let Jade take things from him, bear the weight of their mutual unhappiness he usually insisted on taking on like some abused beast of burden, just so he was protected. Just so he had collateral, a cross to bear. 

When Jade first came back, Davey couldn’t possibly allow himself to lean on him again. Broken trust like that didn’t just repair with a certain amount of recited hail Marys and I’m Sorrys. Davey had to sustain the weight of everything that happened; he had to take Jade back without reassuming him into his soul, while protecting his soft spots still twisted and dappled with the pink-white criss-cross of so many scars. Davey needed to keep himself inside that glass jar, passing judgement and holding his arms tight across his still bruised chest. 

But when Davey was like this, briny and broken and used up like a melon rind with all the flesh scooped out as Jade stayed awake for him while he slept...he realized that maybe it started out as self protection, but he’d taken that too far. Perhaps this was _his_ doing; perhaps he didn’t feel like Jade took care of him not because Jade couldn’t, but because Davey didn’t let him. Davey sighed a rattling breath, feeling it shudder like wings in his lungs as he smoothed Jade’s chest under his hand, finding it almost surprisingly warm among so much cold, so much death and metal and road and grey. 

“How are you feeling? Any better?” Jade asked, the creases around his mouth making him look so much older than he was. Davey moved his hand up Jade’s face, trembling index finger tracing those lines like they were braille directions on how to fix Jade, how to fix himself. 

“I’m no longer hysterical, which I consider an improvement,” He said evenly, turning so his back was flat against the middle seat, outline of his left thigh pressed meaningfully to Jade’s. “Any idea where we are?” He added in a hushed tone, even though Sam and Dean were playing them virtually no mind, Dean’s eyes fixed decidedly on the road like his foot to the gas pedal, Sam slumped in a half-sleep against the window. 

“I have no fucking idea,” Jade said, shaking his head. “Last major city I saw signs for was Indianapolis, but know this interstate goes through Illinois, I’m pretty sure we’re somewhere near Springfield by now...” Jade trailed off, his head dropping like it just weighed too much for his neck. His eyes had dark half moons bruising underneath them like thumbprints of wine, and his hair was a fluffy thing stuck up in ten different ways. Davey was suddenly struck by the blatant, scraped up, exposed _humanity_ of Jade. It was like staring into an open wound, seeing Jade’s insides all wet and red and glistening just like Davey’s would be if you split him open, just like anyone’s would be. 

It hit Davey hard because stripped of all his symbolism and history and meaning, Jade was just a guy. Just a person. He wasn’t Davey’s hurt, it wasn’t his mistrust, he wasn’t his deepest scar, he wasn’t his manhood, his shame, his temptation. He was just a man: one Davey had known for his whole life, sure, but a man with agency, his own hurt, his own shame. They were two people trying to fit into the same bed, the same tiny space hollowed out for them in the earth, and here Davey was making him into a force, a whole universe. What ruined him, what made him, and what he couldn’t ever give up, turn away from, or quit no matter how bad for him it was.

They were just people. Both of them. And Davey Havok was sitting in a car in the middle of an interstate highway looking at Jade the person with his ratted hair and tired eyes and beating heart just like every other beating heart in the world, wondering why on earth this was the one he fell in love with, this was the one he’d chosen to make into his hurt, mistrust, shame, temptation, universe. The simplicity of it shook him, made his heart stop and his breath catch and a pained noise to escape his throat before he found himself saying, “Thanks,” with this harsh sincerity. 

Jade smiled weakly. “You don’t have to thank me. I want to,” he said honestly, in this guarded, self conscious way that made Davey think that when they were alone, Jade would elaborate on I want to, making it perhaps into something closer to _I need to. It’s my job. There’s nothing else in the world that I’d rather be doing, all you have to do is ask, Dave, and I’d try and stop the world’s rotation if is was what would prove to you I’m here for the long haul. But I’m just a person; I’m not what’s making you bite your tongue and hide behind that glass and steal all the weight away from me while you accuse from one side of your mouth that I’m not trying hard enough._

Davey swallowed thickly, a hotness collecting in his throat and making his eyes prickle. He didn’t think he had any tears left in his body to cry, but he knew now that if he let himself, he could drop his head to Jade’s bony lap and drown in his own saliva. Now wasn’t the time, though, so he just let his hand creep into Jade’s palm instead, resting his head on his shoulder. “I stayed up all night for you,” Jade mumbled after a moment.

“I know.” Davey answered. “I know.” They sighed in tandem, staring sightlessly out at the stretch of bleached road ahead of them. Surges of panic kept on rising up in Davey’s throat uninvited, frantic thoughts like _what are we going to do?_ and _we’re stuck without the busses and we’re going to die here._ He was too exhausted to entertain them and the corporeal stress that accompanied them for more than the split seconds it took them to dash across his brain and leave a thundering heart and tightened throat behind in the wreckage. So he tried to calm himself by imagining Jade’s lips at his temple, whispering that it didn’t matter if they died here, they were together, right?

Davey was just starting to nod off again into an achy, restless doze when he noticed that there was another person in the backseat in addition to Jade and himself. Because he was half-asleep, mind weaving in and out of dream fragments and flashbacks of the previous night and Jade’s gentle, even breathing, it didn’t register when the seat next to him was suddenly occupied by a peculiar human weight, nor did it disturb him when his eyes lazily opened to fall upon a handsome but otherwise perfectly normal looking man sitting right next to him and wearing a beige trench coat, expression so stoic he almost looked pained.   
Only when this stranger declared, “Where did you acquire these extra passengers?” in a calm monotone from chapped, unsmiling lips, and Dean swerved the Impala across two lanes and swore colorfully, did both Davey and Jade fully realize someone had just literally _materialized_ right beside them. 

Naturally, Davey screamed, voice ripped and hoarse and followed by Jade’s startled unf as Davey nearly hurled himself backwards and on top of him, knife sharp elbow striking him somewhere in the gut. 

“And why are they yelling?” The man said disdainfully, wrinkling his brow as Dean turned his head to glare meaningfully, eyes alighting with a fierce green fire. “Mother _fucker_ , Cas, how many times do I have to tell you you need to fucking _warn_ a man before you just appear in his backseat, huh?!” He bellowed, smacking the center of the wheel with his palm for emphasis. 

“Please explain!” Jade managed to sputter from where half of his lap was housing half of Davey’s ass. He shoved him off gently, his thighs weak and shaking from fatigue and lack of food and sleep. His hands vibrated from the shock of Davey’s weight slamming into him and his sudden backseat company, so he crossed his arms tightly to deter the shivers. 

“Oh yeah, sorry...this is Castiel, the biggest pain in my ass aside from Sam. Cas, this is Davey and Jade, some rockstars we tossed in the back of the car because our lives needed to be more difficult,” Dean said, but his voice lacked the usual venom is contained when he spoke of Davey and Jade, instead replaced with an almost affectionate exasperation. Jade noticed and caught San’s eyes, which were widened and glassy from just being awoken and blinked to life. 

“Why...why did he just _appear_?” Davey asked carefully. 

“He does that. Its annoying as hell but I guess you kind of get used to it.” 

“Huh, Cas,” Sam mumbled, rubbing two rough palms over the stubble on his cheeks, overgrown hair plastered across his brow. “Long time no uninvited visit. Mind telling us what the fuck happened back in Liberty?” 

“Demon attack, signs of Revelation. It was no coincidence that you two were there, they clearly were targeting you...There’s only going to be more heightened surveillance the farther west you go. I highly suggest you abandon your new guests seeing as they will undoubtably slow you down.” Castiel looked directly at Davey and Jade when he said this, expression nothing less than utter gravity. Davey and Jade’s mouths parted in shock, and Davey sprung to the offense, post emotional breakdown aside.  
“Excuse me?! We’re right here, we can _hear_ you!” He was about to continue on about how Castiel was a rude fuck for writing them off mere second after meeting them...not even meeting them, _interrupting their much needed nap_ when he was silenced by the response. 

“I should hope that you can hear me; we’re sitting side by side. If you were deaf you would prove to be even more of a burden, and only serve to prove my point. ” This was delivered with equal placidity, and Davey’s jaw snapped shut, silenced for once by this Castiel guy’s deadpan delivery. 

“Jeez man,” Jade started, shaking his head, but Dean abruptly cut them off. 

“Ignore him, you guys, he’s not actually an asshole; he’s just an angel, which is a fancy way of saying he’s a badass but lacks all social skills,” Dean sighed. “In other words, take everything he says with a mighty dosage of salt grains, because he means well.” 

“You’ve never called me a bad ass before, Dean,” Castiel didn’t sound honored, just throughly puzzled, like he was trying to figure out if Dean mean badass as a one-word compliment or as a poorly dealt insult using the adjective bad to modify the noun ass. Davey and Jade nodded warily, still attempting to keep their distance despite the cramped backseat. Davey had not lost his offended grimace; in fact it had only doubled in contempt upon Dean’s use of the word angel. 

“Cas, leave them alone. Davey’s a fantastic shot and they’ve both been helping us out with case research, okay?” Sam explained. Castiel shook his head, grey-blue eyes belying no emotion, only concern as he raked a hand through his chaotic shock of dark brown hair. 

“The less attention you draw to yourself, the better. Lucifer knows you’re coming and he’s monitoring your movement, so I suggest you stay beneath the radar. In regards to cases, you should stop working along the way all together...the last thing you need is to get yourselves killed before you even reach California. Not to mention a lot of the demon activity is inevitably the work of Lucifer’s growing armies,” Castiel stated without paying attention to Jade’s increasingly worried look. Sam and Dean only nodded in agreement, like motherfucking demon armies and the devil were all normal, everyday, backyard pests they had to deal with. Jade was worried on his own behalf, but most concerned that Davey would regress into hysterics again if they continued all this doom and gloom conversation. 

“Yeah, we figured we should cut down on hunting for the time being. Plus, the croats have made it damn near impossible _anyway_ ,” Dean huffed. Sam chimed in “You know anything about that, Cas? The Croatoan outbreaks? They’re getting worse and worse.” 

“Well it _is_ the apocalypse, Sam,” Castiel explained, rubbing at his chin thoughtfully. “Everything is getting worse. The virus is just another horseman...Pestilence. It’s only a matter of time before we see Famine and Death manifest physically.” 

“This is incredibly cheery,” Davey snapped dully, inhaling a rattling breath. “But you guys can’t kick us to the curb now. Jade and I checked bus websites last night and they’re all down. The virus quarantine zones have shut down almost all public transit, so you’re essentially our only hope.” It was clearly difficult to admit this; Jade could see Davey visibly struggling to keep the panic and fear out of his voice, to surrender to the bleak reality and allow himself to move on from it, keep trekking forward. He placed a comforting hand on the small of Davey’s back, tried to rub a circle there. 

“But you’re a civilian. You can’t fight the way Sam and Dean do, it’ll be safer if you--” Castiel began but Jade cut him off, shaking his head with an abrupt nod.   
“We don’t have a choice. I mean sure we’re not Hunters, not now, but we _can_ be. I’m willing to fight if it’s the only way we make it back home,” Jade mumbled, toying with the hair that hung in his face. Davey gazed at him, noticing the stains on his stretched out grey striped polo shirt, the beard growing in he hadn’t yet bothered to shave. They were already changing, already shifting and aligning and recreating themselves to keep their spots in this car, fighting in this war. The world might have been ending but it was their world too, and they had every bit as much right and responsibility to go down in flames or out in a blaze or glory, whatever the end might look like. 

“I’ll fight too. You can’t get rid of us that easy,” Davey chimed in, setting his jaw tight and determined. There were still the remnants of fear like curls of steam off southern earth, still threatening heat like hellfire, still. But still he swallowed the sour taste in his mouth, throat working down the stark fact: _we have no other choice._

“See Cas? We’re stuck with them. So get used to it,” Dean said shrugging, smiling over at his shoulder at Davey Havok for the first time since the Croats in Buffalo. Davey’s eyes widened for a second, holding Dean’s gaze in critical examination before he deemed it safe to smile back, complete that thick, exhausting swallow and feel the lead and bullets and rock salt sink to the very pit of his stomach. 

And somehow, it wasn’t entirely devastating to surrender to the raw, very possible nearness of his own death. It was a peculiar, sated exhaustion that set in after one of Davey’s panic attacks. Somehow, it felt sugar coated going down his throat. Somehow, even from the bottom of this mildewed well of brackish water, he could look skyward to the white sphere of possibility glistening like toffee from ahead, thinking, “well, the only way from here is up.”


	16. Chapter 16

“It looks like War of the Worlds.” Davey declared, his palms pressed to the Impala’s windows like some wide eyed child surveying the wreckage of his first accident. He dug his teeth into his lower lip, wincing like he was afraid to see blood. The car was crawling at a painfully slow rate, bumper to bumper with thousands of other impatient drivers all trying to skip town the same way they were, dealing with fear the only way they knew how: running. The traffic had everyone in a bad mood, and Davey’s assertion was met with heavy silence. 

“War of the Worlds terrified me.” Davey continued, refusing to be ignored. This time he was met with a curt, impatient huff from Dean, whose hands had been white-knuckled to the wheel with a painful severity, eyes watering and locked on the blue Corrola in front of them. 

“Tom Cruise was in it. That’s enough to terrify anyone, pussy boy,” Dean ground out through his teeth. It was Davey’s turn to huff this time, and he did so while he pushed himself off the window, thumping down in the backseat next to a napping Jade. Dean shook his head, glad that he was silenced. He had to admit, though, even if he absolutely abhorred every word coming out of anyone right now, especially Davey Havok, it did look like War of the Worlds outside, as it had for the last couple days following the firestorm in Liberty.

After the demons, there was a steadily disintegrating order in the surrounding world. Traffic, for one, was absolutely miserable on the interstate highways, and Dean noticed more and more families walking along side of the road. Whole families, moms and dads and little kids wrapped in Spongebob blankets, the soles of their footsie pajamas black with road grit. First it was just a few here and there, but the numbers grew day by day until it was more unusual for the sides of the road to be vacated, unless they were nearing a quarantine zone. 

Families brought pets, wagons packed precariously with blankets and grocery bags. Dean started to see them camp out in Easy Ups and tents on highway elbows and nearby clearings, and it was no wonder, seeing as every other motel they tried to get rooms at was fully occupied. They started driving the Impala to the edge of the quarantine zones, which seemed to the the only towns without an abundance of evacuated families clogging the halls of every lodging option.

Aside from the eery, Twilight Zone quality of it, all of this was also just a royal pain in Dean’s ass, as the primary driver. He was trying to put as much distance between his car and Liberty and as possible, but all these motherfucking evacuees and their stupid kids and dogs and _fishbowls_ and whatever else they’d decided to block his path were making life, and escape, difficult. 

Not to mention the quarantine zones were widening daily. The other day, Dean had to call Bobby and hunch over his Thomas Guide with a highlighter and map out all the dead space in order to reroute their trip to California. This involved taking a detour through Nebraska in order to avoid the massive chunk of Eastern Kansas that was infected, much to Dean’s irritation. He felt like he’d fallen in a cactus, and now there were five hundred needles stuck in his ass, leaving him with a painful, tedious extraction process that involved a lot of fucking traffic, and a lot of camping Middle Americans. 

Dean was so wrapped up in his cactus needle removal, that he’d kind of failed to realize he was disregarding everything else in the world but his mission across America to kill the devil. He should have realized he was becoming an attack dog by the way Sam kept on glaring at him heatedly from the passenger side, or across the motel bed cluttered with Revelations lore and photocopies about the four horseman. Dean attributed it to Sam’s usual stick up the ass. Couldn’t have been his fault. Not in the least. 

The truth was, however, that when Dean decided it was business time, a funny thing happened in his body chemistry and he suddenly became quiet and stoic and efficient, this reckless killer with no regard for the way a guy was supposed to act in normal social situations. He decided the battle was beginning and geared up for it steadily, cutting ties, becoming mechanical, inhuman, dangerous. It had happened before, back when he sold his soul to the devil. At the time, he felt like he had nothing to lose, like he was going to die anyway so he might as well go down swinging and then some, taking out as many sons of supernatural bitches as he damn well could. After all, his soul was Lucifer’s when he got to the pit no matter which way you looked at it. 

This method, although effective in short term hunting trips, hadn’t actually been tremendously smart in the long run. Having a death wish when he was already essentially going crazy implied that he was a man with nothing to lose, and because he was a pesky little bitch and tended to do this, Sam had popped his head into the equation and slapped some sense into Dean. Reminded him that he did have something to lose, and that was his brother. But by that time, it was too late to save Dean from hell. So, a whole lot of good this habit did him. Regardless, this was what Dean did; this was how he prepared for a war. 

“Dean!” Sam yelled like he’d been at it for hours. Dean snapped his head around, narrowing his eyes to offended slits of green. Sam had this awful face on, like he’d just witnessed Dean commit some mortal sin, and it made Dean’s skin crawl with discomfort. 

“What?! Why are you hollering at me dude, you’re like, two whole feet away!” Dean barked, trying to pass this whole thing off on his brother when clearly he was the one who’d been too wrapped up to hear him calling. 

“I’ve said your name two hundred times. What the fuck is your problem? Where have you been? You seem like you’re about one second from launching out the window with a gun and tearing up a quarantine zone, Dean. You’re tense as hell. I can _feel_ you wanting to kill something,” Sam snapped, making a tight, patronizing line out of his mouth Dean wanted to backhand into something softer, something he could kiss and bite into submission.

He suddenly missed the way things were a lifetime ago, when Sam was still his little brother who’d follow his every order with a look of dog-like adoration on his face, idolizing Dean in the way only an innocent can. Now Sam was all sharp edges and accusations, his equal and adversary. Someone he had to fuck in order to protect. It all just seemed so broken and messed up in Dean’s head, and he couldn’t look at Sam anymore, eyes whipping to the stagnant line of cars in front of him. 

“Well?!” Sam bitched, and the air was almost crackling with tension, Jade startled from his nap and Davey scooting closer to him instinctually, both of them trying not to listen.

“Just shut up, man. Just shut up.” Dean grumbled without loosening his grip on the wheel. “It’s this goddamn traffic.” 

“No, it’s you. It’s you and your reckless, stupid, let’s-go-slicing-up-every-Croat-in-the-state-like-I-have -nothing-to-lose-bullshit you always pull when you get scared, and hopeless, and think you’re going to die!” Sam tried to keep this down to a bitter hiss, but it inevitably rose to yelling at the end, and Dean could feel his cheeks getting hotter and hotter with fury the louder Sam’s voice became. 

Well fuck then. If that was the way it was going to be, he wasn’t going to talk at all. It was the best way to get under Sam’s skin: silence, so he kept his teeth gritted firmly and said nothing at all while his brother nearly exploded in apprehension next to him. Dean tuned him out, vacating and focusing instead on Lucifer and California, and all the thousands of miles between them. It was easy to do. 

And of course it was easy. Without realizing it, Dean had slipped into the same old pattern as he had after selling his soul. He should have noticed it when Sam found him standing in a mostly-empty convenience store between the grimy aisles of cleaned out Pringles and Hostess cupcakes and Slim Jims , staring at some inconsequential spec of flotsam on the ground like it might tell him how to beat the devil, and apparently Sam had been waiting for close to fifteen minutes in the Impala for Dean to get his ass out of the mini-mart and into the drivers seat. 

He should have noticed it when Sam would call his names a few times unheard, causing no ripples on the glassy green surface of his eyes. He should have noticed all the times he was so deeply involved in his own grandiose plans for ending the end of the world that he just ignored his normal, at hand tasks like driving them to the right coast and filling up the car with gas. He should have noticed all the times Sam would sigh, hooking his fingers in the crook of Dean’s elbow and steering him towards the Impala, towards the bed, towards his cell phone to call Bobby. 

But part of getting this way was _not noticing_ , so Dean didn’t actually recognize that he was vacating the land of the living in favor of going about things like a tin solider or a mechanical guard dog until they got to the last uninfected town in the state of Kansas, and Dean accidentally carried his shotgun from the gas service station to the mini-mart to buy jerky. 

This obviously incited a brief civilian panic he hastily dispelled with some slapped together bullshit story about wildlife services and a bear sighting, things came to a head. Leading up to this incident Sam was noticing Dean fall into his bullshit avoidance shit, the shit he pulled when their dad was killed, the shit he pulled when he got himself into the soul-selling mess. 

Needless to say, he was starting to stray from socially acceptable Hunter behaviors, and Sam decided at that point some kind of intervention was necessary. Dean needed a task to distract himself from the quickly approaching showdown with the devil, some easily attainable goal to soak up the fatalistic energy he was putting into the nearing, impossible one. 

After crossing the state line between Missouri and Kansas, Dean stopped the Impala at a gas station to fill up, while Davey and Jade walked to pick up produce and canned goods from the Dillons across the street. Once they were alone Sam regarded his brother over the top of the Impala’s dusty roof, watching Dean watch a station wagon full of too many people rumble up noisily. Several loud, blonde, middle school age kids scrambled out like feral pups in a litter, yelling all the way to the mini mart, elbowing each other through the sliding doors arguing over what slushy flavor to purchase and share, while their exhausted looking mother slid from the drivers seat to pump gas, eyes swollen from crying. 

“She looks like she’s in bad shape,” Sam said gently, only because he knew Dean was testy right now, coiled tight from traffic. Predictably, Dean didn’t answer; the corner of his mouth twitching minimally like he thought to say something but decided against it the only visible response he gave Sam. In spite of that tiny tremor, his eyes stayed trained on the woman, on her shaking hands handling the gas pump as if it were entirely too heavy, as if it were the weight of the Croatoan virus, of the demons and the locusts and Lucifers. 

“You hear me Dean?” Sam pressed on. 

“huh,” was what Dean noncommittally shot back, his teeth in it. 

“That lady’s in bad shape. Almost as bad as you,” Sam repeated, sliding his palm across the caked on grit coating the Impala’s roof towards the jagged slump of Dean’s shoulder. He knew his arm wasn’t long enough to cover so much space, but it seemed important to try. 

“Whatever, Sammy,” Dean sighed in an exhausted voice, rubbing absently across his lips with the back of his hand. 

“I want you to stop in the next town. I know we gotta cut up through Nebraska to avoid that big quarantine zone, and that’s gonna be a hell of a driving day, and you’re fucking falling apart, dude. You need to rest,” Sam tried to make his voice sound more accusatory than gentle and concerned, because historically Dean responded better to Sam’s hard edges than his soft ones. Dean wanted to believe that he was the one who took care of Sam, the only one capable of expressing fraternal worry. The only one with the desire to tug his brother’s resisting body to his own and beg it to bend, hold on, collapse, relent. 

“I don’t need to rest, I’m fine,” Dean said curtly, finally looking over his shoulder to glare coldly at Sam, his lips pursed with a near painful tightness, face looking weathered and wind-chapped. “Maybe you’re falling asleep against the window, but I’m wide awake.” 

“I don’t mean you’re not _awake_. I mean you’re doing that thing you do, dude, and you need to quit. You’re getting reckless, obsessed, crazy. You forget that almost killed you last time, Dean,” Sam didn’t have to force the biting edge to his words this time; it came effortlessly, powered by hurt. “I just want you to slow down, stop moving for five seconds and focus on me.” 

There was an infernally cold wind blowing, and it whistled past Sam at this moment, creating chaos from his hair and sealing his eyes almost shut. He tightened his jacket around him, fingers and nose sharply painful and numb. Still, he stayed pressed to the car’s iron flank, waiting for Dean to give him more than this hurt look, this tight-lipped grimace. He looked offended, as he did every time Sam mentioned his soul, as if Sam was declaring some unspeakable secret of his deepest perversions and mistakes and loyalties and loves. As if Sam was telling a crowded room that they fucked, and sometimes that was all that held Dean together, sometimes that was the only weak glue sealing all Dean’s broken pieces into some semblance of a whole. 

“We can stop in the next town,” Dean finally said, making clear that he didn’t want to, but agreeing was better than arguing, better than hearing that too-honest slap in the face spilled like a secret: _you sold your soul_ , before the implied for me. Dean sighed, shaking his head and popping the collar of his flannel in defense against the bitter cold. “Sometimes, Sam. Sometimes.” He mumbled. 

“Sometimes?” Sam asked, drawing a crooked pentagram in the Impala’s dust absentmindedly. 

“Sometimes you piss me off,” Dean answered, jamming his hands in his pockets and scowling. In spite of the scowl, Sam was satisfied that there was any inflection in Dean’s voice at all. Anything other from that vacant, compartmentalized distance. 

“Sometimes you go fuckin’ crazy,” Sam said firmly. He gazed across the parking lot, eyes falling on Davey and Jade’s approaching silhouettes hunched against the wind, arms crossed over their chests and a few bags of groceries weighing them down to a clumsy slowness. He looked suddenly back to Dean as if struck. “I want you to train Davey to hunt better tomorrow,” he declared with conviction, eyes narrowed. 

Dean narrowed his eyes back, two slits of grey-green suspicion, dark with apprehension. “Why Davey? Why do I get the mouthy one?” 

“Because you two could learn a lot from each other. And we need to train these guys if we’re keeping them, you know that just as well as I do. You heard what Cas said. Tomorrow, target practice, knives, pure substances, everything. I’ll take Jade and you take Davey.” Sam explained with an unquestionable firmness, and because Davey and Jade themselves arrived at the car just as he was finishing, Dean couldn’t exactly argue. His eyes flashed and Sam smiled before ducking out of the frigid air and into the Impala’s passenger side, leaving little time for any disagreements. As Dean followed him huffily, digits nearly frozen to immobility and cheeks flushed, Sam thought with a flicker of hope in his chest that he might have found that distracting task he needed to save Dean from plummeting headfirst to his own death. 

~*~

And as Sam had hoped, Dean had his hands full with training Davey the following day. So much so that it snapped him clear out of his brooding, war-oriented melancholy and straight into his usual brash, pissed-off but generally tolerable self. They got a motel in Nebraska after the last pit stop, some trucker dive not too far from the edge of the east Kansas quarantine zone, surrounded by miles and miles of dead, grey-grass fields like dirty snowdrifts: perfect for target practice. Dean had grumbled a lot at the beginning, mostly because Sam was ordering him around, but after setting up a series of empty beer cans for Davey and Jade to shoot at on a hollowed out, termite-weak stump in the middle of all that empty Nebraska ghost land, he got kind of wrapped up in the whole thing. 

Davey was already a decent shot, and he was really into destroying cans that previously housed beers, so the weapons training was a complete success. Dean figured Davey would actually benefit more from learning hand to hand combat, military style just like this dad taught him. He dragged Davey a few hundred feet away to avoid Jade’s wayward shotgun shells, and Sam watched this transition with mild amusement and a little concern, the twin plumes of his and Jade’s breath making his brother and Davey all but hazy silhouettes against the mountain-less horizon. 

From what he could tell at a distance, Dean was being firm, roughly readjusting Davey’s stance and hand placement while maintaining a judgmental coldness in the defensive hunch of his shoulders. Sam shrugged, trusting that Dean wouldn’t kill Davey in their time alone together, turning back to Jade and telling him to fire once again. 

He wasn’t thinking that Dean would loosen up, he wasn’t entirely sure this would work at all. But every once and while, between the sky-shattering cracks of gunfire and the eerie whistle of wind through Nebraska field grass, Sam thought he heard Dean’s laugh, crowing and manic and a little crazed, just like the rest of him was. The laugh startled Sam, and he’d look over his shoulder and try and make out what his brother and Davey were doing, talking about, fighting over. Dean didn’t laugh much anymore for any reason, lest of all one involving the company of Davey Havok. Sam shrugged it off, returning his battered fists towards Jade, old fingers he had broken years ago aching and stinging in the cold. 

An hour or so later Dean and Davey returned from their combat lesson, eyes bright and black and glittering wildly among so much grey landscape, and Sam spied a chummy hand of Deans slapped upon Davey’s much shorter shoulder, a pink wind-flush making his exposed skin seem raw in this somehow gut-wrenching way. Sam gawked, narrowing both his eyes in a kind of wonder. “You two friends now or something?” He asked. 

Dean ignored his question, slapping Davey again with buckling force and announcing, “You better brush up on your spin kicks, Sammy, or else Dave here is gonna give you a run for your money.” And then they both laughed, like all the long running tension and dislike and resistance between them had merely diffused into the air or swept away by the wind, leaving nothing but some weird unspoken camaraderie. 

Jade immediately was suspicious. “Did you just call him _Dave_?” He asked, making it clear with the venom in his voice that only he was allowed to do such things. It reminded Sam of the way he got when anyone but Dean called him Sammy, an internal bristling that he suppressed, because outward expression of such things drew attention to something he couldn’t voice, something he didn’t have words for. 

“Jade, it’s okay,” Davey said, and they regarded each other for a few seconds quizzically before Jade shrugged, seeming to deem the situation beyond his comprehension, but otherwise not worth questioning. He turned back to his shotgun, strips of black grease from the barrel streaking his hands, darkening his knuckles like bruises from a fistfight. 

“He’s not just a good shot. He can fight too, quick thinker and whatnot,” Dean explained, elbowing Sam excitedly like he had some new protégé or something. Dean usually took so poorly to outsiders that they never lasted long enough to get to any stage of acceptance, but Sam was realizing that apparently all it took to earn Dean’s seal of approval was sticking around, enduring the abuse, and demonstrating some inherent talent for hunting. 

“I told you, its because I know how to hardcore dance,” Davey declared with a note of sheepish pride, rubbing at his arm. “You got me a few times though, shit. I’m gonna be all bruised up tomorrow.” He rolled the sleeve of his red, metallic parka up over his swollen looking elbow, poking at it and wincing. 

It was at that moment that Sam noticed subtle changes in Davey’s demeanor since they’d met in Buffalo: his hair, previously coifed to a careful volume, lacked any style what so ever at this point, laying floppy against his forehead, sticking up from insistent wind-blow in the back. His jeans were torn at the knee undoubtably from the combat lesson, crumbling grey earth clinging to the expensive, designer material. Even the way he stood had changed from the self-important stance of a rockstar to a relaxed slouch, chest deflated, making him seem even shorter than he was next to Dean. But on top of all those external changes, most crucially Davey had ceased his prior resistance to hunting, his prior apprehension about holding a gun, fighting, and embracing his natural inclination towards it. Sam nodded to himself with a faint feeling of triumph, eyes skating to Dean, whose expression of satisfaction mirrored his own. 

Dean jutted his chin to Jade, crossing his arms over his chest. “Lets see what my brother’s taught you. I think you two queens should fight,” he grinned at Sam before adding, “You know, to see whose the better teacher...”

“You wanna fight me Jade?” Davey said, raising his fists and raising his brows provocatively, adrenaline and mirth making his eyes glint like crystal. Jade smiled at him, and their gaze crackled with an intense fondness and affection, so much so that Sam (and even Dean, who was usually painfully oblivious to that sort of thing) cut their eyes down uncomfortably, feeling like they were invading somehow. 

“Uh, maybe later, he still needs some more practice,” Sam said gruffly, interrupting the eyefuck or whatever else that had been going on between Davey and Jade. 

“I’m not exactly stellar either,” Davey scoffed in response, sidling back to Dean’s side. “Come on, you gotta teach me to stop relying on the spin kick so much...” 

“Alright, reconvene in a half hour or so Sammy?” Dean asked, and after a curt salute in response, Davey and Dean were off again, tripping across the flat, gopher-hole pockmarked landscape, broad shoulders hunched against the wind. Sam watched them retreat with a crease through his brow, shaking his head slowly. 

“Well that wasn’t what I was expecting,” He said after a moment of perplexed staring as he turned back to Jade, who was shivering how that he wasn’t moving, a sheen of dried-sweat on his brow stiffening the forelock of his hair and cooling on his skin uncomfortably. 

He hopped in a place a little in a vain attempt to promote circulation, teeth rattling clumsily around the words, “I knew it was a matter of time.” 

“What, before Davey and Dean became all buddy buddy? Huh. I thought they’d kill each other before then, but I guess this is a preferable alternative...” Sam said, skepticism in his voice. 

Jade shrugged. “Davey has this way with people... It’s kind of crazy, you can try to resist, but before you know it you’re in love and in hate with him. It’s impossible to be indifferent around Dave.” 

“Speak for yourself,” Sam said, fairly certain he was neither in love nor in hate with Davey Havok. At the same time, he kind of knew what Jade meant, at least in a general sense about charm, about charisma. Before Dean went to hell, he was one of those people. Maybe that was why they were getting along so magnificently all of the sudden. 

“You never know. Tomorrow I might have to fight you for him,” Jade joked dryly, still shivering. 

“Well, you’d lose,” Sam snorted. “Come on, hands up. Let’s go again,” and with that, Jade sighed, brought his newly balled fists to home position, and let Sam prepare him for war.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You should hear me talk about this story. Every time someone mentions it, I'm like, "fuck ET! Fuck it, I'm never going to finish that motherfucker! I don't remember anything about it, blah blah blah." Which is kind of true. I don't remember huge chunks of this story, and it causes me tremendous angst. However, I will finish it, I think, because this keeps on happening where I sit down and miraculously write a chapter.
> 
> Anyway, this scene was part of what made this story get written. When I thought up this evil thing, I always knew it was going to have this chapter. I hope I did it justice. There is a lot to read between the lines in this one, and I was tempted to explain it, but I decided to end it without the metaanalysis, so be a good reader and take this as more than what it is.
> 
> I'm going to stop sounding arrogant now, ew.

~*~

To Davey Havok, the last couple days felt like popcorn and cranberries strung along a Christmas streamer: isolated incidents punctuated by expanses of vacant space, dead air. He remembered parts of it; he remembered Dean booking motel rooms and he remembered shucking his clothes, still full of grit and ash, to the floor before falling into a catatonic, black out sleep curled up next to Jade, their spines mirrors of the same shape. 

He remembered piling back into the car the following morning for more driving, he remembered a brief expanse of time he thought he was fine, in which he watched families parade along the side of the road, herds of cattle milling blindly towards the edge of a cliff and tumbling off one by one like lemmings.

He remembered learning to fight, his fists stinging from impact and Dean’s eyes grey green and wide and startled the first time Davey actually managed to sneak in a left jab. He remembered the wine-colored knuckle-marks all over his own arms and chest, mimicked in this one brilliant place on Dean’s pectoral. 

He remembered the shittiest motel yet, this cockroach-breeding shoebox in Nebraska where he couldn’t sleep because things kept on crawling across his face, many-legged, shiny, scuttling. He remembered stumbling to the bathroom to take a piss and finding Jade bent in gaunt light over the sink, nail scissors glinting in his hands and a halo of fallen tawny hair dusting the sink rim in ruin. 

“You cut your hair off?” Davey had asked, hoarse and disbelieving. Jade looked different. Not just because of the uneven, close shorn hair, but because of everything. He looked stronger and weaker, thinner and more muscular, exhausted and more awake than ever. Older and older. 

“Yeah,” Jade had answered. He raked a hand through the oily spikes, reached behind him and found Davey’s hand. He touched himself with it. “I guess it was starting to seem really pointless that I had to flat iron my hair every morning. What a pointless twenty minutes to waste every morning, when the world is ending.” 

He remembered kissing Jade then, little tiny bits of loose hair pricking his lips and getting stuck and choking in his throat. He remembered their new, strange bodies pushing together and relearning angles and bruises. He remembered making new ones. 

He remembered the miles and miles of Wyoming rushing by on either side of the Impala’s dust-obscured windows. He remembered sage green stretching out so far it touched the sky, violent blue and explosively full of clouds. He remembered pointing out how beautiful the landscape was, even in spite of the heaps of bodies beside the road, naked and dirty and stiff with rigor, some smoking in burning pits because rumors were floating around that the Croatoan virus could be neutralized if you burnt the body. 

He didn’t remember Idaho. He didn’t remember eating. He didn’t remember selling his luggage, his designer jeans collection, and four pairs of shoes to a pawn shop for practically nothing, just so they could buy gas as nine dollars a gallon on the edge of the Nevada desert. He only knew these things happened because Jade told him. It was like his memory was this subjective thing, fashioned by what he wanted to stay inside of him and what he listened to Jade say. 

He was getting used to ash in his hair and on his shirts. He was used to the itch of healing things, and the pain of the newly broken. He still wasn’t used to Jade by his side indefinitely, Jade with his new haircut and growing beard. He wondered how long it would take for the shock to wear off, and it it ever would, or he would die thinking he was alone even if he was not. 

“Are we still in Nevada?” Davey asked, head in Jade’s lap in the back seat. They were stuck in traffic again, and he’d been nodding in and out of sleep. Every time he woke it was impossible to gauge how far they’d moved, seeing as they were sandwiched between the same four cars, and desert everywhere else. Davey’s cheek stuck to the denim of Jade’s pant with a veneer of drool, and he licked it away, tasting metal and earth. 

“Yes,” Jade said, hand stilling as it cupped the back of Davey’s neck. “You can sleep. I’ll wake you up if anything happens.” 

“Look at this,” Dean’s voice scraped up in the front seat. He tapped his hand against the window glass. “I think there was an outbreak in the migrators...check out all the blood. No wonder we haven’t moved in...let’s see... _forty five minutes_.” He slammed his hand on the dash, elbow colliding with the horn so it blared out into the traffic, contagious and sparking a chain reaction of other furious drivers trapped in their cars. 

“Dean, stop. You just fucking set them off again,” Sam had his head pillowed on a mess of sweatshirts and flannel he’d shucked since it had gotten warm. He shifted against it, trying to get back to an unconscious dreamless sleep, his bare shoulder sparkling with beads of lymph and blood. Davey sat up carefully, testing his bones and wondering where Sam had gotten that scrape, unable to remember, unable to remember much at all. 

“What makes you think there was an outbreak? And where’s the blood?” He leaned into the front seat, thumb and forefinger picking at Dean’s shirt-collar. Dean pointed ahead of them, sighing.

“Up there. There a bunch of civilians with guns...where the fuck are the police in Nevada? Did they just decide--”

“It’s probably better they’re not here and fucking shit up,” Sam mumbled. “Should we go check it out up there? It’s not like the car is moving anywhere, not with these goddamn rubberneckers. There are people crying, look. And bodies on the ground.” 

“Don’t bother. What probably happened is someone in their party got infected and attacked the others...and now they’re figuring out who lives and who dies. They won’t want us to interfere...plus, we can’r risk contracting it. You remember what Cas said,” Dean reprimanded. 

A small crowd had gathered in the blood-stained sand, some crouched over dying people, some vomiting into their hands. Davey narrowed his eyes, trying to pick the scene apart and see each figure as a person who loved and was loved, who was as scared and as determined to survive as he was. It was hard to separate human from flesh, just pockets of flesh in the desert and along the road, dying and living and breathing and crying whenever one of them stopped. 

His eyes were blurring with the strain when he saw it. One of the bodies, sitting and writhing and clutching at its side, was wearing a DF shirt. 

“Stop the car,” he choked, heart suddenly climbing and thundering inside of him, ratcheting up his throat. 

“No problem, it’s not like we’re moving or anything,” Dean grumbled. 

In all the things he’d forgotten, his heart was one of them. The new force that Davey’s blood was scrambling through his veins hurt him, made him panicky. His ear pounded with it, his hands hot and wet as he scrambled across Jade and to the passenger side door. “I have to go out there,” he explained, though his voice was frantic and a it was a bad explanation. 

“What?! Why?” Jade held him back with arms around his waist, but Davey was still stronger. Before anyone could stop him, he was stumbling out of the Impala on stiff legs, steadying himself on the hood of other cars. 

“Dave!” Jade shouted, “You’ll get infected!” 

“Fuck, what is he doing?” Dean turned the car off and kicked out the door to follow, but Sam held him back. 

“Leave it. If he wants to turn into a Croat, that’s his issue, but we all can’t expose ourselves,” he said in a harsh voice. “Jade, you stay too, you fucking _stay_ ,” The warning was undebatable, so Jade bit his lip and watched Davey’s receding blot of darkness. They all hung back, craning necks to see what the fuck Davey was doing out of the car and in the desert. 

The kid was about seventeen, with dyed black hair and a lip ring. Davey’s heart broke, because he’d seen this kid before. And if he hadn’t, he’d seen a million like him. This kid could have been anyone, any other seventeen year old wanting to be saved by him, any other young, alone, happy to be unhappy if unhappy meant being an AFI fan. Davey dropped to his knees between two people, a man and a woman with blood in their hands and tears on their faces. 

“Are you his parents?” Davey breathed, pulling the kid onto his lap. He was light, like a husk of a real human. He could hear his own heart more than anything else, but distantly, three voice calling his name. He ignored them, carding a hand through the kid’s hair, thumbing open his sticky, determined eyelids. 

“No,” The woman said evenly, voice computer-mechanical. “We didn’t know each other until a few days ago. Everyone here, all of our families were attacked or turned...so we all kind of congregated.” She wiped snot and grit from her nose, inhaling raggedly. “ He was bitten. We don’t know what to do.” She gestured to the dead body of a croat, shot through the chest and stiffening several feet away, stinking of shit and metal. 

“How long ago was he bitten?” Davey asked, struck by her calm, which was most likely a symptom of shock. The man, by contrast, was animal with mourning, terror, exhaustion, something. 

“Five minutes? Ten, maybe.” She sat back on her haunches, inhaling raggedly, and repeated, “We don’t know what to do. Do you know him?” 

“Kind of.” Davey answered.

Davey shook the kid in his lap, trying to wake him up, bring him back. “Hey, hey” he said softly. Glazed eyes slid open, focusing on him. “What’s your name? Do you know who I am? 

“Nick,” the kid said thickly, through a mouthful of blood. “And you...you’re Davey Havok.” 

“Yes! Yes, right,” Davey responded, startled and moved by the prickling of heat and wet that surged to his eyelids, startled and moved by the insistent beating of his own heart. 

“What are you doing here?” Nick said, in awe. He visibly wondered if he was dead. 

“Finding you.” Davey answered, thinking of what it would be he wanted to hear when he was seventeen and dying. 

Nick smiled, his gore-wet hand lifting to touch Davey’s cheek. “You...saved my life. Not today, but a long time ago. When I was like, twelve. I’m a huge, huge fan. I can’t even...” 

Davey pushed the hair out of his face, tucked it behind his ears. He didn’t need to examine the bite wound gaping on Nick’s pale white throat to know it was going to infect him if it hadn’t already. He sucked air in hungrily, let his miracle tears drop onto Nick’s face and streak it’s ashen grey through with pink. “I am so honored to hear that, Nick,” He said, placing a hand flat across the narrow chest. It was shuddering with heartbeat, a tandem frantic two-thud dance that matched Davey’s. 

He didn’t know what to say, because nothing would be enough. Nothing would be enough and nothing would be enough. Nick’s lips fluttered around words that kept on vanishing. 

Davey knew he was running out of time, so he turned around, leaking eyes trying hard to fix on the beetleblack hull of the Impala. Dean was leaning against it, poised and unsure, holding a pistol in his jacket like it was a soda-can, something harmless and nonchalant. Relief flooded through Davey, and he nodded, gesturing for Dean to come. Sam and Jade followed, both streaks of sand color against the sand horizon. 

Turning back to Nick, Davey remembered. He remembered a lifetime ago, and he remembered what it felt like. “Did you ever make it to any of our shows?” He asked in a soft voice. He could feel Jade and the Winchester brothers behind him, their footsteps crunching in the broken glass and gravel dirt on the road. 

The heat of Dean’s angry body loomed close, but Jade pushed him back. “Let him,” Jade whispered. He took the pistol from Dean’s grip, and set it down beside Davey.

The crying man had gone silent, and the woman had walked a few feet away, eyes fixed on the place where the sand met the sky out in the distance. Davey picked up the gun, inched it into his lap. 

“A bunch. Fourteen,” Nick said proudly, his hand falling to cover up his cringe. Blood, thick and fragrant, seeped out of his torn neck and from between his fingers, lurid and black-red all over the faded blue raven on his DF shirt, which he had clearly worn to death. “You probably don’t remember, but in 2007, I saw you guys in Vegas. I met you. I gave you a letter. It was the best day of my life.”

“Oh,” Davey whispered, touching Nick’s too young lips, his too young cheeks with old and gun-calloused fingers. “Oh of course I remember. I remember you Nick, we talked after the show. Of course I remember.” 

Nick closed his eyes, sighed, and smiled like that was all he’d ever wanted to hear. 

“Of course I remember. Of course I do,” Davey whispered. If there wasn’t poison blood everywhere, he would have kissed his fingers and then pressed his fingers to Nick’s lips. Instead he kissed the air, and tried to keep his hand and his breathing steady through the slick of tears blinding him. “I remember you.” 

This was a lie; Davey did not remember. But he said it anyway as he pressed the muzzle of the gun into the back ok Nick’s head, and pulled the trigger. 

He sat there for a few moments, Nick’s fingers growing cold in his palm and with brains on his jeans and Jade’s hands on his shoulder, until Dean dragged them back to the car before the traffic moved without them. 

“You don’t have to say anything,” Jade said through sobs that were bigger and much than Davey’s. “You don’t. I think you’re so beautiful, though.” 

Davey shook his head, thinking instead that he was not beautiful, but selfish. But even more miraculously, he was alive. He staggered, and the sun was hot as is reflected against the window. 

The sky touched the sand and the traffic crawled on while Davey’s eyes dripped and dripped and blood dried until it was sticky. Everyone was holding their breath and Sam was holding the gun and counting, but fifteen minutes went by: no change.


	18. Chapter 18

They were home, but it didn’t feel like home. 

Jade could hardly believe they were driving through northern California once they got there. California had always been a burnt place, hot and smoking and plagued with miles of desert, miles that had been multiplying each year of melting polar ice caps and water shortages. He remembered conversations with Davey from last year, when the clouds would gather huge and white and hulking like elephant ghosts in the sky and the wind was too warm and gusty and misplaced. He remembered holding Davey’s hand in a way that still felt new and dangerous and saying, “It feels like the end of the world.” _If feels like the world is ending._

That didn’t even seem ironic as he thought it now, merely obvious. If course it felt like the end of the world. It was. 

Last year has been particularly dry in California. Jade went to Ukiah to visit his parents in late May, and he remembered noticing how the hills and vineyards that usually flanked the freeway in pale, damp green had dried out already, when they usually waited to turn brown and die well into June. That memory of green faded to gold was nothing in comparison to the charred wasteland they were driving through now, though. That was a new California, this was an alien world. 

Everything was black. Smoking stubs of trees lined the roads like scarecrows in a dust-bowl field, these hulking ominous things from a horror movie set, certainly not real life. Jade felt like his skin was blistering where it touched the metal of his seat belt buckle. Only the metallic green signs over and beside the freeway telling him which exit was coming up revealed where they were. Otherwise Jade _could not tell_ , could not orient himself within this mess of charcoal and caution tape lined pits of smoldering bodies. 

It was California. It was not home. 

The smell of Sonoma was something Jade would never forget, the woodsy sage and fall smell tinted with salt when you crossed the San Rafael-Richmond Bridge. It was the smell of home, the smell he remembered from when he was sixteen and driving across the water to Berkeley for a show, Davey sitting shotgun with his stupid hair and shirts that were ten sizes tok big for him. It was something he took for granted, something he thought would never go away. After all, where would it go to? How could something like the smell of the land _disappear_? 

Jade was thinking this question, dazed and slouched in the backseat sweating a sweat that felt thick and toxic from absorbing the smoke made from burning dead people. Though his thoughts were contained within his mind, Davey answered for him as he sometimes did, just when Jade was beginning to question the sanctity of everything left on this earth. 

“Burning pits,” Davey said quietly, elbow pressed against the window. “I think they’re burning the bodies.” 

“Why _in the fuck_ would they do that?” Dean asked. “There has to be a _more sustainable_ way to dispose of one’s dead. Y’all are freaks out here in California.” 

The word hit Jade in the gut like a bucket of ice water. _California_. This was all they’d been waiting for, all they’d been driving towards. This was the promise of home, the place their family lived, the place they’d grown up in, the place they viscerally knew the scent of. It should have been. But it wasn’t. 

California was where the devil was, so California felt like hell. There was nothing here but piles and piles of bodies, and maybe, somewhere, people Davey and Jade used to love. Jade hoped those weren’t the same thing. 

“They probably wanted to kill the contamination...I mean, who knows what new strains are breaking out. The word on the street is that croats are getting harder and harder to kill. So, might as well just incinerate the carriers. You can’t reanimate a pile of ash,” Sam mused. 

“Fuck. Some homecoming,” Davey sighed. He leaned into Jade, adjusting the fabric he had tied around his mouth to breathe through. They’d all shredded their most bloodstained shirts into makeshift bandannas, which they in turn soaked in holy water to cover their nose and mouths. Dean said it was a safety precaution, though everyone else suspected he liked driving a car full of people who looked ready to rob a bank. 

Jade put his hand on the back of Davey’s neck, thumbing between the two taut, nervous cords of tendon that stretched from his shoulders to his skull. He wanted badly to offer some words of reassurance, to tell Davey that maybe, just maybe, everyone they knew _wasn’t_ dead smoking in a pit alongside the 101 freeway. However, there was nothing to say that wasn’t a lie. He _didn’t_ know anything. Cell service had been out for close to a week, and the internet was long gone. Most of the landlines had been cut during the quarantines, and every pay phone they’d seen along the way had been vandalized and defaced by mobs of vigilante civilians.

The destruction of every form of communication Jade had come to trust and rely on was extremely off-putting. He thought of all the time he poured into constructing his online self, the wasted hours hammering away at a keyboard uploading images and writing code. Putting his better self, his fictional self, into something that at the time, had seemed permanent. Now it was all gone, and he was left with himself unfictionalized. He found that he wished he used that time improving his real self, the body and mind he was stuck with, instead of the two dimensional fragment he created, all numbers and html and programming. 

Now everyone was in the same boat of disconnected wires and fallen ideals. All of the people Jade was cut off from and was helpless to contact were all suffering from a similar sensation of phantom limb pain, unable to speak and unable to receive signal, marooned in this dead land and stuck with their real, flawed selves. There was no way to know if they’d survived such a purgatory. 

There was no way to know what had happened to _anyone_ they left in California, save for ending the apocalypse. And there was no way to end the apocalypse save for driving south with Sam and Dean, and ensuring they did whatever they could to help them waste the devil. 

Jade knew this, and so did Davey, so they resigned themselves to silence. 

Each exit crawled by, each mile of scoured and scorched earth. Jade passed time by counting all of the meaningless thing he’d lost. All of his social networking profiles, all of his emails. All of the evidence he and Davey had exchanged, negotiations on who got what four years ago when they were dividing their belongings, apologies and pleas to stay. The things Jade saved because they meant something, they represented a time in his left he felt was worth archiving. None of that mattered anymore. Nothing mattered anymore, save for their slow crawl south.

The Impala inched on. Jade felt like he could keep going, because this was not his home. It was just dirt topped with grass not green not gold but the color of corn husks on the barbecue Jade remembered from the Sonoma County fair, salty and sweet-smelling like toasted sugar among all the manure and grease from carnival rides. He shut his eyes tight, and no tears came out. 

“How did you guys _tolerate_ this shit? Is it always like this?” Dean broke the silence, leather squeaking under him as he shifted. 

“Is what always like what? Though I can assure you, nothing about right now is how California usually is. Sorry, used to be. I guess I shouldn’t kid myself,” Davey said with little inflection. 

“I was referring to the stop and go traffic...I kind of figured the gigantic pits of _dead people on fire_ were a more recent fixture,” Dean said snarkily, demonstrating his very predictable habit of progressive mood deterioration in the face of traffic congestion. 

“It can get bad. Not this bad, though. Not end of the world bad,” Davey mumbled. 

Sam suddenly turned around in the passenger side, sunglasses he’d received from a from a grateful civilian back in Nevada smudged and uneven. “This must be weird for you guys. We don’t have a home so we take all of this for granted...but are you okay? Does it feel weird, to be back?” 

Davey and Jade exchanged glances, and the look in Davey’s eyes was disarming in its candidness. It hit Jade in the gut, and he swallowed with a dry throat. “It’s weird. But it’s okay,” he said carefully, voice muffled by wet cotton as he wondered if there was a way to accurately convey _how_ it was weird and _how_ it was okay. “I can’t speak for Dave, but...” _he’s more of a home than any state will ever be_. Jade can’t say it though, it seems like a betrayal to Ukiah and a commitment to something that will die, something impermanent like land and the internet and the vastness of nature. But Davey blinked, and it was like an echo. 

Sam turned back around, and didn’t ask them anymore questions. 

There was no warning. One moment Jade was settling back into the leather and putting his hand heavy and hot on Davey’s knee, and the next he was catapulting into the back of Sam’s seat, his forehead smacking into the bones of his own wrist and his teeth clacking together. Dean slammed on the breaks and screamed “shit!”

Attempting to recover from the sudden blackness, Jade struggled to sit upright, hand flying to cradle his skull where the impact bruise was already forming. In the seconds of chaos that followed, he watched Sam and Dean burst out of their respective sides of the car, and lope to the trunk. He knew something was happening, and he knew that whatever it was, he was supposed to be reacting in the same lightening fast, efficient manner. This was what he’d been trained to do. Instead he sat there blinking back stars, dumbfounded and scared and wondering where the hell Davey had evaporated to. He was what Cas had called deadweight. 

Startled by the sound of knuckles on glass, he turned abruptly to find Davey outside and redfaced and sweating, mask pulled down around his neck as he motioned at the lock with his free hand, the other steadying the one sawed off shotgun and one 22 gauge shotgun that were slung over his shoulder. Jade unlocked the door and threw himself outside the car. Davey pressed a clumsy, rough kiss to some already forgotten part of Jade’s face before shoving the shotgun at his chest, and sprinting back to the popped trunk. 

Dean was leading the pack, a pistol raised and his feet in a wide, confident fighting stance. Jade followed the trajectory of his gun barrel, and in the distance, saw a pack of six croats. He froze, hands tightening around the metal of the trigger, slipping with a sudden sheen of sweat. Unlike the staggering, frothy-mouthed zombie-type of croats they’d been encountering across the United States for the last week, these creatures walked upright, carefully, almost as if they were uninfected regular humans. The only way Jade could identify them as croats at all were because of blood on their grins, on their throats and their shirt fronts and dripping from their hands. 

Though they were still far enough away from them that Dean was holding fire, Jade could identify a chilling awareness in these croats, an intelligence that reached past the mindlessly animal urge to kill and consume they’d seen up until California. Thoughts racing, Jade wondered if these were a mutation, an evolution, or some new creation of the devil’s. Then he had no more time to wonder because Sam was shouting at him, “Jade over your shoulder! six o’ clock!” 

Without thinking Jade turned on his heels and shot towards six o‘ clock, the rubber soles of his tennis shoes feeling melted to the steaming asphalt and pinning him there. For a split second he thought he missed, but then there was the unmistakable sound of something soft and hard and alive and perhaps still human, or human and perhaps still alive, hitting the pavement. 

He whirred back around to face the approaching pack, arms feeling twisted and aching from kick back, ears ringing from the gunshot. A sea of terrified faces obscured by car windows slid by on either side of him, and then there was Davey, suddenly beside him and emptying a round of bullets into the croat Jade had just floored. “We don’t know if shooting them in the chest is enough, now,” Davey hissed. Jade noticed the blood in his hair and the sweat staining his collar. Then they were both forced to catch up to the Winchesters, two broad backs wavering mirage-like in the sweltering distance, tombstones among rows and rows of metal traps called cars. 

“Fuckers have gotten smart. That was an attempt to trick us, there, that one that snuck up on us,” Dean pounded out, wiping his brow on his sleeve. “I don’t have a clean shot yet, but if any of them makes _one move_ on a car, y’all open fire, you hear?” 

“Good work, Jade,” Sam said in a brash, wild voice. He clapped Jade on the shoulder, and Jade nearly tipped over. 

“They’re coming closer. Everyone form a circle, backs to the center to cover our blind spots,” Davey ordered. He sounded like a hunter, and something clutched in Jade like a fist. His voice was this scraping thing, gravel and air that was thick with other people’s burnt skin and hair. 

Everyone turned, shoulders and shotgun barrels bumping together. The first attack came from the left, a huge guy with a wobbling white gut hanging over the belted waist of his bermuda shorts, the coarse hairs in his arms scabbed with rot. He was closest to Davey, so the circle opened up to allow for the kick of the sawed-off, which Davey fired instantly, eyes dark and level and unblinking. The bullet tore into the croat’s considerable beer-belly, fat and flesh erupting onto the pavement where they sizzled. Stumbling, the croat dropped to his knees, but continued his approach with a new, acute fury in his lucid eyes. 

Jade could feel Sam and Dean breaking in separate directions, the cracking of gunshots this endless, painful onslaught of panic. _We’re surrounded. They’re surrounding us_ Jade thought, then he cocked his gun and fired at Davey’s croat, catching him in the shoulder, just as Davey’s second bullet hit him square in the throat. Blood sprayed in the air like a rooster’s tail, and then Davey was gone, ripping towards the Impala’s still popped trunk. “Jade, cover my ass. I have to reload.” 

There was bile acrid and stinging in Jade’s mouth, and his feet felt like lead, but he did what Davey told him. He spat a mouthful of ashy gritty saliva onto the pavement, still floored by how easily Davey filled this role, and how he would have _never known_ this murderous, machine-efficient side of Davey had it not been for the end of the world, and the crossing of paths with Sam and Dean Winchester. 

He stood behind the car, trying hard not to empty his rifle at every ounce of motion that tracked in his peripheral vision. Sam and Dean seemed to be holding their own alright, after all they were professionals. Davey reloaded in record time, then laid his hand on Jade’s back like something on fire. “Ready, let’s go back em‘ up.” 

His eyes, when they locked on Jade’s, were the exact color of flint. Grey-black and glinting and sparking. Jade thought he’d seen every color Davey’s eyes could be, the deepest tarry brown of sorrow, mahogany when he was on his back with his legs spread and wanting and his lashes were low-slung, the bright, coke bottle molasses of fury when they fought on and on like it was their job. But he was wrong. He’d never seen his before, this acute, fire-starting color. There was too much warring inside of Jade for him to identify what it made him feel to witness this new facet of the gemstone that was Davey, but he did feel, and he felt hard. 

They ran across the road, shoes slipping in infected blood and smoke clouding their vision. Jade skidded to a stop right behind Dean, who was suddenly knocked down onto his back by a slight, brunette croat with a heart-shaped birthmark on her shoulder. Jade stared dumbly, eyes volleying between Dean at his feet and Sam still wildly fighting another two blood-slick bodies with thrown fists and the barrel of his gun, the monosyllabic grunt of “Dean!” scraping from his lips. Jade knew he should do something to help, but he wasn’t confident enough in his marksmanship to try and shoot the croat, not with Dean still writhing and kicking beneath her. 

Davey was better at this though, faster, so he was the one who jumped into the fight, taking the barrel of his gun and using it to knock her in the jaw with a fierce, abrupt motion. Her eyes, terrifying in their hard-edged clarity, cut up to meet Davey’s, and she licked the blood smeared on her upper lip with a feral snarl. 

This breach in focus, however slight, gave Dean enough time to wrench his knee up between her legs, knocking her body off balance, and to the left. Jade and Davey both saw their window and opened fire. Blood rained down onto Dean’s gasping, heaving chest, but he struggled out from under the lifeless, half-obliterated body, yanked the bandana from his mouth, and managed to mumble, “help my brother.” 

Davey was two steps ahead of him and had already offed one of the croats that was closing in on Sam, leaving the other an easy target. Sam managed to punch the thing until it was on its knees, the ragged remains of its business suit reduced to gory tatters, mouth open and hungry until the last second, when Sam stuffed the barrel of his gun past the still gnashing teeth and fired. 

Everyone stood stunned for a moment, eyes flashing as they scanned the horizon for anything more to kill. The sound of sirens was far away, maybe for them, maybe for some other nearby disaster, drowning out the cacophony if quiet, scared sobs from civilians safe and locked inside their blood-spattered cars. 

Jade dropped his gun, hearing it clatter on the pavement in this distant way, hand instinctually reaching out to grab Davey’s forearm and ground him back here, in this foreign world that had at one time been his home. His hands were shaking with the knowledge that Davey was alive, and so we he. 

Dean groaned somewhere behind them as he clumsily sat up, muttering, “Fuck, that was awesome. We’re not used to having back-up.” 

Jade’s eyes, unfocused and bleary in their shock, fell naturally on Sam who stood beside them and sighed “Dean,” the second his brother spoke, the word escaping from him like something unintended for the air. Then, before anything else could happen and anyone else could say or do another fucking thing, Sam strode over to Dean, fisted two huge, adrenaline-strong hands in his gore-slicked shirtfront, and hefted him to his feet. Jade registered Sam’s eyes going dark and desperate, and then he registered the space between the Winchester brother’s disappearing on one swift, intent motion.

“What--” Davey started, then stopped. His forearm tensed up in Jade’s palm, like a compressor hose suddenly filled with air and hissing to life. Jade waited for shock to hit him, for revulsion to unspool in his gut the way he would expect it to, but instead, nothing happened but what was already happening, his heart hummingbird fast in his ears and endorphins making his limbs tingle. That, and Sam Winchester’s mouth closed over Dean’s, kissing him so hard and wet Jade could hear their teeth clicking together. 

“Hmm,” Jade said stupidly, pulling Davey closer to him because he needed him close. “Come on. Car.” He pulled him along, past Sam and Dean, whose eyes were closed and whose lips and tongues were moving together, hungrily, fervently. Jade closed his eyes when he saw Dean’s hand mauling up the enormous stretch of Sam’s shoulder blade and under the collar of his shirt in this way that told him that he’d done it before.

Davey put his head in his hands once they were safe inside the backseat again, sweat and dirt and blood speckling his arms like ink from a wayward tattoo gun. He took a ragged inhalation and mumbled “What the fuck just happened?” 

“We just killed six croats,” Jade answered, because that seemed like the important part.   
~*~

Instead of getting a hotel that night, they decided to camp on the side of the road. They made it to the central valley, which Davey and Jade swore used to be the most dried up, yellowest part of the state, but now seemed like an oasis in comparison to the north and apparently, based on hearsay, the south. There were little colonies of travelers setting up camp in the huge, plowed areas that used to house crops, all gathered around well-contained fire pits and barbecues sizzling with hotdogs and carne asada. Some had guitars or banjos, and one tall, willowy girl with dredlocks and a tattoo of a cricket on her calf was swinging balls around on strings in time to music while onlookers clap in primal amusement, bonded by their impending death. 

Sam couldn’t relate to any of it, and he certainly couldn’t join in, but he could _blend in_. Everyone there shared their appearance of disheveled exhaustion, and everyone had dental-floss sewn wounds and fifths of whiskey in their laps. The blood on their shirts wasn’t scaring any onlookers away and it wasn’t drawing attention, and that was all Sam required of a place for them to catch a few hours sleep before recommencing the trip to pay Lucifer a visit in LA. The bustling, denial-rich and panic-free central valley encampment made it easy for them to park the car, throw together a half-assed tent from tarps and greasy blankets that they wrapped guns in, and keep to themselves. 

The sun was already setting, glowing a radioactive neon orange through the smoke. It was nearly dark, and _still_ , Sam could taste the sweet, salty, tangy flavor of fire and leather and iron that was the inside of his brother’s mouth, hot and searing on his when they kissed and blistered under the now-setting sun. He kept on replaying the scene in his head, and wondering why no one had mentioned it, asked him about it, hassled him, _harassed him._ It was like it hadn't happened at all. It was like Sam’s sudden thought of _I don’t give a single fuck about anything else in the world right now save for the fact that your heart it still beating_ had been inconsequential when in fact, it had been monumental. 

At this moment, Dean was socializing in broken Spanish with a pack of field workers for the sole purpose of scoring food and Jarittos, and Davey was passed out in the back seat of the Impala, sleeping for the first time since they’d killed the kid in Nevada. Sam and Jade were huddled in their lean-to tent as inconspicuously as possible, seated stiff and awkward around a dish of salt, an battery powered camping lantern, and five or so empty magazines. Packing rounds of rock-salt had become am evening ritual between the two of them, a time when they could just sit there and not talk, knowing silently that the other was perfectly comfortable with his sins and his silence. 

This evening was no different, but Sam knew he should be tense. He knew that Jade had seen him on the highway, that he had been one of a million onlookers who witnessed him pulling his brother out of the puddle of blood before he kissed him deep. Sam took a shotgun shell and filled it carefully, eyes dark as they scanned Jade’s placid face and downcast eyes for anything, _anything._

When Jade did bring it up, it wasn’t how Sam was expecting it. 

“So, I’ve known for a long time. About you and Dean.” 

Sam knew something was coming, but not necessarily that. His prepared response wouldn’t have made sense, so he laughed, caught off guard. It was supposed to come out cold and humorless, but instead he sounded kind of floored. “Oh yeah, what about us?” He said with a newly dry, sticky mouth.

Jade’s eyes stayed fixed on what his hands were doing. “That you weren’t brothers.” 

Sam made a face. _Of course we’re brothers_ he thought, fingers stilling and brows knitting together as his mouth formed a flat, nonexistent line. Jade’s gaze flicked up, and he cocked his head, a question written across him in invisible ink. Sam was unsure how to answer, because Jade was wrong, but he was also right, about something. 

Because Jade Puget has never ben anything but an honest man to Sam, he caved in, setting his gun down and smiling at how absurd this all was. “What would you do if I told you that you were right, about what you’re thinking. About what you saw. But, that, and we _are_ brothers.” 

It was Jade who stopped this time, his eyes wide and flickering. The lean-to was quiet, and far-away sounds of the party before the apocalypse forgotten and muted. He held Sam’s gaze for several moments before his lips formed into a clumsy, hesitant smile. “I don’t know. A few months ago...maybe even a few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have had something to say about it. I would’ve not believed it, or I would’ve thought it was fucked up, or weird...but Sam. The _world_ is ending. If you’re brothers, and you’re also...whatever you are...then whatever. That’s fine by me, I guess.” 

Jade wasn’t particularly good at talking to people who weren’t Davey, and Sam was’t particularly good at talking to people who weren’t Dean, but they both seemed to get the other one, at this moment, right here. Sam’s mask of uncertainty melted away when he realized Jade wasn’t mocking him. “Thanks,” he mumbled in return, though he didn’t need anyone’s approval. He’d made his peace with the possibility of hell a long time ago. 

Several minutes passed in almost-silence, the gentle clicking and slide of metal on metal filling the air between them. Sam sighed, wondering if Jade was the first person who found out about Dean and him who hadn’t tried to talk them out of it. They hadn’t told anyone, there had just been moments like this afternoon, one too many public slip-ups when adrenaline was running high and it felt like nothing mattered. People had just found out.

There was Bobby, of course, who gave up after awhile but had certainly given them a piece of his mind or two or ten on occasion, stuff about how they needed space from each other and how it wasn’t natural and above all else, it was _dangerous_ to love someone that much, that way. Then there was Cas, who they hadn’t told but had a habit of showing up uninvited at inopportune times, Cas who never told them what he thought about it but would shoot long, mournful glances in Dean’s direction enough times Sam knew he didn’t think it was _swell_ or anything. r32;  
There had never been someone like this, who let it go as quickly as he discovered it. Sam ached with gratitude, an exhausted sensation transforming his bones into iron, heavy and untouchable. “Thanks,” he said eventually, voice cutting into the quiet like a scalpel.

“Don’t mention it,” Jade answered. Sam looked up long enough to see him shrug. “I’ve held so much pointless judgement in my body for so long. Directed at everyone, mostly directed at myself. At Dave. But it was a fucking dumb thing to waste energy on, I know that now. None of that shit matters anymore.” 

Sam nodded, following only half-way but knowing that half-way was enough. “We’ve lived our lives with that _nothing matters_ attitude for a long time. It’s part of the job. So maybe that’s why it happened, I don’t know.” 

Jade stretched out one of his legs, groaning and bunching the filthy denim up around his ankle, where a scrape was crusted in black blood. It was a minor thing, just lymph drawn to the surface of skin. Jade rubbed absently around it as he said, “That makes sense, as much as any of this makes sense.” He paused long enough to roll his pants down again. “I gotta...if you don’t mind me asking, that is--”

“Ask away,” Sam said, though he wasn’t sure he knew how to talk about this. It wasn’t a thing he talked about, not with Dean and certainly not with anyone else. Perhaps the proximity of the apocalyptic showdown made things different, but he didn’t have the energy to make himself remember _why_ he didn’t talk about this, so he sat there expectantly, waiting to hear what Jade wanted to know. 

“How...how does something like that happen? Not that I have an issue with it.” He held his hands up like he was surrendering in a gunfight. Sam felt weirdly numb. “ I mean, I have a brother. I love him. I just can’t think of a circumstance that would ever lead me to...even think that way about him,” Jade stuttered out. 

Sam took a deep breath, and his lungs stung with dirty air. “You don’t have to worry about offending me. I know it’s fucked up.” He said in a flat voice. 

“Not anymore fucked up than the fact that right now, I can’t bring myself to worry about or even care about her, even though the state is burning down around us,” Jade said in an almost inaudible voice. 

Sam’s eyebrows raised involuntarily, his lips pursing. “Her...your kind of ex-girlfriend, her?” 

“Mmhm,” Jade sighed. “So honestly, fucked up is all relative. Plus, we’re going to die soon. I’m only curious because you’re my friend and I want to know shit about you.” 

Mouth quirking into a surprised smile, Sam shook his head. “Okay then. That’s fair.” He inhaled raggedly again, his chest expanding painfully, a sick ache between his lungs making him wonder how many hours he’d been awake, how many black coffees and caffeine pills he’d poisoned himself with so he could stay up and pack more rounds full of something that probably wouldn’t even kill the devil. He sucked in more air, and tried to remember Jade’s question. _How does something like that happen._

“Well...you...your brother...you lived like normal people, until now. Dean and I were _raised_ like this. We were all the other one had, ever. For as long as I’ve been breathing. It just sort of grew naturally from that.” He wasn’t entirely sure this was the truth. At the very least it was _part_ of it, he knew that their upbringing probably didn’t _help_ them develop normal feelings for each other, but he also knew that it was much more than that. All of the answers that seem to encompass the endlessness of it, the enormousness of it, sounded imperfectly worded or didn’t make sense. _It’s always been this way, even before it was. It could never have been anyone but him. He’s everything._

Sam coughed through the sudden unexpected thickness in his throat, and looked down. He could feel that Jade’s eyes were elsewhere, the side of the tent or the bowl of salt. He was glad for that, though he knew Jade was listening, could sense the nodding of Jade’s head. 

“I doubt it was a thing of convenience, though. Loving your brother doesn’t ever seem convenient.” 

Sam barked out a laugh, then gritted and bared his teeth in a parody of smiling. “No. No, it’s never that.” He wrung his hands together, noticing the black half moons under his nails, the new cuts and burns that would be old scars if he lived past this week. “I think if we had been raised normally, maybe, it wouldn’t have happened. But only because we knew it shouldn’t have, not because it wasn’t supposed to,” he mumbled out, more to himself that Jade. “It almost makes me glad we didn’t have some apple pie life, and got stuck with this instead.”

Jade didn’t have time to answer, because a that moment the crunch of Dean’s boots in the dirt outside the Impala was nearing, and both Sam and Jade shut right the fuck up. A hand pulled back the sagging, blue tarp that doubled as a tent flap, and Dean’s face appeared, flushed with someone else’s beer. “I brought you soda, Sammy. You too, tinkerbell.” He ruffled Jade’s newly shorn hair fondly. Ever since Jade cut it, Dean had insisted upon calling him tinkerbell, because he thought the new hair made him look like a pixie. “And...meat....and a whole motherfucking package of tortillas.” He thumped the goods down in the middle of their salt-packing circle beside the lantern, and Sam dove for the meat, not even pretending he wasn’t starving. Jade inched his hand in, sneaking a few of the corn tortillas off the top of the stack.

“Thanks. Any leads on Lucifer?” Sam said curtly through a mouthful of carne asada. He swallowed, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and took the bottle of lime Jarittos Dean was offering him, finger sliding along the condensation. It was an incandescent, radioactive movie-monster green, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to drink it. But it was coming from his brother’s hand, his brother who was still alive and miraculously, for the time being, not mad at him, not blinded by hurt and striking out from his corner with claws. His brother was here, sloppy and untucked and striking. His mouth felt dry, so he took a too-sweet glup of soda.

“No, nothing too solid. Nothing more than we know...keep driving south. I only half understood these guys, but it sounded like shit gets worse and worse the closer you get to LA, and then there’s a...ah, what did they call it... _el cielo_ right smack dab in the middle of Beverly Hills. Whatever a cielo is. Anyone have an uh, Spanish to English dictionary lying around?” He swigged his soda, green eyes glinting in the last fragments of the setting sun. 

“Cielo...I think that’s sky. Something like that. Dave will know,” Jade offered. 

“Where _is_ Dave? Is he still out cold?” Dean asked, raising an eyebrow. The hand that had been in Jade’s supposed pixie hair fell to Jade’s narrow thigh, where it landed with a resounding smack. 

“He’s crashing in the car. Leave him though,” Jade answered. Then, “You guys have to stop smacking me. I’m gonna splinter, I’m only like, a third your size,” Jade mumbled, but there was a sneaking smile twisting the corner of his mouth. Dean was grinning back openly, one of those lazy grins that spread across his face when he was drunk on beer or adrenaline after a particularly successful hunt, a smile like the sky cracking open and raining down hellfire. Sam’s stomach uncurled like something blooming, and it all seemed terribly easy in this moment. _Because it’s always been this way, even before it was. It always will be. Because this is the way we are, and the way we’re meant to be._

“Maybe you need to man up, little toothpick tinkerbell,” Dean said, flicking Jade’s elbow and swigging his soda. “Well, when he wakes up, ask him what a spanish oasis is. And give him this,” Dean fished a barbequed corn-cob out of his jacket pocket, its blackened husk fogging up the inside of its plastic baggie. “I can’t believe that bitch hasn’t given up the vegan thing yet. Oh, I also got this.” 

Alongside the food, Dean brandished a tiny rectangle of paper which he laboriously unfolded to reveal a map of California. “Someone went ahead and marked all the quarantine zones on here, and all the areas where there have been croat sightings the news hasn’t mentioned. Apparently, shit is happening so fast out here the media coverage is useless, and the police either bailed or went corrupt, so steer clear of them. Not that we don’t already.” 

Sam grabbed the lantern and leaned over the map, studying its carefully drawn and color coded key. “Looks like there is hardly any clean land. Some here way the fuck over by the coast, and then...” Sam trailed off, narrowing his gaze to the five mile radius of unmarked territory encircling a mysterious point in West LA. “There. Right there. I bet that’s where the devil is.” 

“El celio,” Dean muttered, lips battered and too red around the neck of his bottle.

“That means heaven in Spanish,” a hoarse fourth voice chimed in from the tent’s shabby entrance. Three pairs of eyes turned and fell on Davey, who was bleary-eyed and shirtless against the dusk. 

“Heaven,” Dean echoed, grinning. “That’s ironic. Well, that’s where we’re going.” He downed the rest of his soda. Sam watched the ripple of his throat swallow and swallow until he couldn’t watch anymore, and then he closed his eyes, mind sticking to the thought _this is it_.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big, huge incest warning on this one. It's almost entirely porn. Its been a long time since we heard from Dean, so here are his latest thoughts. Hope you enjoy!

_This could be the last night I live_ , Dean thought and felt nothing. Death was the job. It had always been the job, and there were two ways to deal with that truth: admit it, or deny it. Whatever you chose, it didn’t matter, because nothing changed the fact that it was a reality, and whether or not you allowed yourself to embrace that it was just a matter of time before it ended bloody, _you were going to end bloody_. Dean had tried different things, in the past. He tried thinking about it, not thinking about it, running from it, running towards it. It hadn’t changed shit. Every moment in his life, every narrow miss and resurrection, had been hurtling steadily towards this apex. El Celio in the middle of LA. And this could be the last night Dean lived. 

When Dean showed Davey how to shoot a pistol one handed at arm's length, he remembered telling him _These are just the motions. They’ll buy you time, in a fight, in your life, maybe. But you gotta remember that when you’re going up against the shit that we go up against, you’re numbering your days. We’re gonna die, Dave. Death is the job._ And Davey had smiled a weird smile, this brash, hardedged grin with too many teeth that made him look feral and animal for an instant, and said, _It’s everyone’s job. No matter what life you lead or what shit you go up against, everyone’s going to die in the end. I figured that out a long time ago._

Taken aback because what did this punk know, Dean shrugged eventually once he’d stopped thinking about it, and said _I guess you’re right._

This last year or so since he’d come back from hell, he’d been trying _not_ to think about it. But tonight, under a tent under the stars overlooking an ending world, he was thinking about it. The encampment wasn’t silent, but the air around them felt still, stirred only by three chests breathing steady ins and outs in a half circle of sleeping bags around Dean. Davey and Jade were out cold and pressed together like they were magnetized, and Sam was opposite them, a horizon line of shoulder and hip standing out like a relief map against the night behind him. Dean watched, traced that topography over and over again with his eyes. 

In all probability, all four of them were going to die tomorrow. In all probability, this was the last night Dean would spend staring at the shape of his sleeping brother, aching with the whole of himself to reach out and touch, with his palms, his mouth, anything. 

Nearly every night preceding this one Dean was caught in a battle between wanting Sam, and knowing that all wanting Sam did to both of them was cause oceans of grief and regret and spilled blood and broken promises. Nearly every night preceding this one, if he had the faculties to stop and _think_ about fucking his brother, he would pour every ounce of restraint into _not_ giving in. 

Those nights that he gave up, that he came stumbling and hard and maddened towards Sam, were the nights he was shitfaced, the nights he almost saw Sam die and was high with the relief of averting it. There had to be some catalyst to bring him there and to his knees, in front of Sam with a hand on each of his brother’s thighs and his mouth on the inseam of his Levis sealed with a raw, imploring exhale. 

Tonight, all he could think about was how fucking stupid it had been to resist all of that. 

Wanting Sam was like the tide. It was the same every day, as constant as the moon and as full of rage and force as the sea. The tide is a stupid thing to try and stop, and what’s more, it’s an impossible thing to try and stop. It was a force of nature. Dean was struck with how much energy he’d wasted on the act of restraint, when death was the job and they could have died any day, any moment, and all he ever wanted was an arm’s length away, willing and wanting and ocean-strong to drown in, this shape he’d watched night after night with the same hot, twisting fury in his gut. 

He moved as quietly as he could across the floor of their makeshift tent, and the sides of it fluttered with his movement. Sam was asleep but only just, so when Dean’s body was suddenly there beside him, shaking and wet-faced, Sam startled towards him, expression of worry knit into his brow. “Dean?” he said, voice a quiet thing and hand moving instinctually towards the gun beneath his duffel bag. 

“No,” Dean rasped, reaching up and pushing Sam’s huge, tensing arms above his head, cords of tendon and planes of muscle twitching and reflecting silver in the moonlight. The air smelled like smoke and the memory of sun, and that was not enough for Dean so he put his face into Sam’s hair, sucking in mouthfuls of familiar smells, oily and salty and _Sam_. “You” Said Dean, because there was nothing else to say. 

He pulled away for a moment, holding Sam’s massive body to the earth and just studying his face for as long as he could stand it, the high juts of his cheek bones, the curve of his nose, the crescents of dark hair falling into slits of terrified eye. “Was so fucking stupid, Sammy,” he breathed, locking his hips into his brother’s, feeling so much strength and fear hardening the body beneath him. He remembered the taste of his brother from earlier that afternoon, and his insides became molten. 

“What?” Sam said, but the word got lost in the air between them, which was hot and wet with Dean’s ragged, desperate breath. Sam canted up into Dean, a jagged, involuntary jerk of his hips. Their cocks, half hard already ground together and Sam’s skin broke out in a wave of gooseflesh. 

“We should have done this every day, every goddamn day, Sam, since we knew we wanted it,” Dean said, words muffled by Sam’s neck. He licked in the hollow of his throat, tongue gritty with unwashed ash. He didn’t care, Sam’s skin-taste was underneath that, and he used his teeth to drag it out, taking firm, uncaring bites into Sam’s shoulder, his jaw, his cheek.

“I would have let you,” Sam choked out. “I always would have let you, Dean. God, just, fucking--” Then Sam struggled out from Dean’s grip, freeing one hand which he immediately brought to cup the whole side of Dean’s head, which he brought up, up, until their mouths were crashing together, slicked with saliva and the tears Dean was only half-aware were dripping from his eyes. 

They kissed hard and messy, and Dean sought out the surface of Sam’s teeth with the tip of his tongue, desperate to memorize it, memorize everything. Nothing about this was graceful or clean. Sam smelled like he hadn’t worn deodorant in a week, and his hair was greasy and slippery in the fistfuls Dean took of it. Still, it was better than anything he’d ever felt, it was all he’d ever wanted for as long as he’d allowed himself to admit it, and surely before that. He forced Sam’s shoulders into the dirt, ground him down until there was space between their bodies, just to feel Sam fighting to get rid of it, to press them flush once again. 

It always moved fast. Whenever the dam grew too weak and the surge of water too strong, everything crumbled and came rushing in so quickly it was over as soon as it began. Then it was back to the weeks of tension, of wanting and denying and cursing himself for wanting. But Dean was going to die tomorrow, so he wasn’t going to let that happen, he wasn’t going to let Sam come before he got his mouth around him, before he took him apart. “Shhh, shh,” Dean said quietly as he pulled away, forcing himself to slow down and still the desperate rippling of his hips against his brother’s. 

He fit his hand around Sam’s mouth, to hold him down and stop him from saying anything that would make Dean change his mind and fuck it all to hell and rub against him until he came searing and unceremonious in his jeans. “I’m gonna have all of you,” he said, ripping the buttons on Sam’s shirt open and fitting his mouth to the hot, spicy skin underneath. “You’re mine. _My_ little brother,” he mumbled, mind a static whir of white, free hand rucking up under Sam’s shirt hem and covering his stomach with his palm. Sam’s abdominal muscles were shuddering erratically, tiny spasms under the sweat of Dean’s hand. 

He felt all of him, letting his fingers align with the slats of his ribs, pressing into the ungiving muscle and snagging against the dark curls under his navel. Sam’s huge hands roved exhaustively across Dean’s shoulders and hair, and his mouth was a wet open thing under Dean’s other hand. Dean slid his ring and little finger into the slick heat, feeling the inside of his brother’s mouth in all of its soft, impossible smoothness with dirty nails and rough callous. _Why didn’t I do this before, why didn’t I do this every day, every second?_ He thought, far away and broken. Sam sucked more fingers into his mouth, and Dean’s dick twitched so surely he thought he was going to come for a second, before Sam could even get his hands on him. 

Reaching into his own jeans, he unbuttoned them and struggled out, cringing as his dick was exposed to night air. He bit Sam’s chest where there was no skin or looseness of muscle to bite, digging his teeth in too hard so that Sam groaned deep, rumbling groans around his palm. He licked down across his brother’s sternum, nipping and drooling and grinding his dick against the impossibly hard, thick surface of Sam’s thigh.

His hand dragged down, over Sam’s cock tenting the front of his Levis. Sam lurched into the pressure, his face a beautiful wrecked thing lined through with hunger. Dean threw a leg over Sam’s hips, straddling him and pressing their dicks together. “Sammy,” he mumbled, licking deep and desperately into Sam’s mouth. “Whatyou want? Tell me what you want,” he said quietly into the corner of his lips. He wanted to give him everything, all of the things he was too scared to give when he was less conscious of their inevitable death, all of the things he rushed into and out of because they were too good to bear for very long. Between their bodies, he forced his hand beneath Sam’s unbelted waistband, fisting the perfect, too-thick heat of his cock. Sam bucked, hissed. “Where do you want me?” 

Sam couldn’t say anything, he just kept shaking his head back and forth, wetness sliding out the corners of his eyes and into the lines through his brow. He inhaled a ragged sob, body shuddering between Dean’s knees. 

“Please, Sammy,” Dean begged, hand already wet with the oily beads of precum that were leaking from the head of his brother’s cock with every heartbeat. His skin was almost too hot to touch, but Dean just tightened his fist, forearm taut and sweating with how bad he wanted him, how bad he’d always wanted him.

“Everything,” Sam finally managed to say, and Dean was already between his bent knees, hiking his jeans down over his ass and pressing his face into the smoldering junction of Sam’s thigh and his body, dick a searing wet thing against Dean’s cheek. Sam smelled musky and strong and sour and dirty and wonderful, and Dean licked the sweat between his balls, up the underside of his cock. Sam thrashed, up and away from him like it was too much, but Dean held him in place, hands pressing hard down onto the top of his quadriceps. Then his lips were closing over the head, sucking the smooth, perfect skin just above the ridge for a few seconds until Sam’s hands closed in his hair and pressed him slowly, slowly down. 

Dean didn’t move for a while, because he was afraid Sam would come given how tense he was and how much his flesh was pulsing under the swollen skin of Dean’s lips. Breathing in desperate huffs through his nose, Dean just stayed there, lost in the weight of his brother in his mouth, his own dick rubbing against the sleeping bag under him in perfect, shifting friction. Then Sam was letting air escape his lungs, relaxing his grip in Dean’s hair, letting him move. 

He could feel the gathering of hard muscle on either side of his head, the contained power of Sam’s thighs tightening and twitching, so Dean started moving his mouth slow, up and down Sam’s length with his tongue lashing lazily because he wanted this to last, he wanted Sam down his throat for as long as either of them could stand it. His chin was wet with his own spit, and Sam’s fingers too rough in his hair but it was perfect, perfect enough to wish into endlessness, his brother flat out under him while everything else burnt down.

His hand roved over the insides of Sam’s thighs, the muscles of his ass, and eventually, experimentally, between the taut cheeks to where he was damp and sweating. He’d thought about putting his mouth there before, but it always seemed like a filthy, impossible fantasy. Fucking your brother was one thing, but licking his ass open and tasting him inside was another. For the hundredth time that night, Dean thought that he’d been very stupid to deny himself and to deny Sam anything they’d ever wanted of one another. 

He grabbed Sam’s left leg and ducked underneath it, pushing Sam down by his lower back so his ass was exposed. Then he thumbed it open, so sure about this his mouth was watering, and licked the dark, clenching pucker of muscle. They both held their breath for a second, until Sam reached behind him and pulled himself apart to give Dean more access, and then Dean was kissing him there, sucking him there, pushing up inside of him with his tongue and one index finger and Sam was so fucking infernally hot and velveteen inside it was like getting burnt. 

“Fuck, stop,” Sam choked out after a few seconds. “Dean.”

Then Sam shoved him off, rolled over, gripped tight around Dean’s shoulders and pulled him up so their mouths were sealed again, the tangy ghost-taste of Sam’s dick and ass pushed into Sam’s mouth by Dean’s tongue and it was impossibly good, too dirty and perfect to be real. Dean’s stomach was destroyed as it frayed and collapsed, so it was easy for Sam to roll Dean over onto his back. He was taller and stronger and Dean was weak and drugged with want, so he was a pliant body under Sam’s hands. “Want you like this,” Sam growled, pushing Dean onto his back and his knees to his shoulders and bending him in half. “Like this.” 

They’d never done this before, not even a version or an attempt, but it didn’t matter because Dean wasn’t afraid of pain and he wasn’t afraid of Sam, not anymore, not after realizing he should have taken this a long time ago. Taken what was his, all of it. Sam kissed him hungrily, with so much tongue neither of them could breathe. Then he pulled back, gasping for air, and spat into his hand. Dean pulled his legs further apart, wide enough to admit his brother, eyes half-lidded and hazy until Sam’s huge, wet damp knuckle was easing into the soft place where Dean could be broken apart, pushed into. Dean made a noise and it rumbled into both of them, and Sam’s other hand made a fist around the length of Dean’s cock to jerk it gracelessly. 

To feel Sam touching him there was nearly too much, and his dick pulsed and twitched with every added knuckle and finger. He closed his eyes because they’d whited out anyway. 

“Come in me,” Dean heard himself say, head thrown back so his throat was an expanse of kissed skin. “Sammy, need you to come in me.” The noise Sam made wasn’t a word, but it meant yes. 

Sam’s dick was messy enough with Dean’s spit and precum that the tip pushed in easily, past the twitching, gripping ring of muscle, and that was all it took. Sam buried his head in Dean’s neck and sobbed while he filled him in long, snapping bucks of his hips, and Dean could not imagine a better feeling than this, his brother broken and coming on top of him, spurts of seed slicking his insides. He held onto Sam’s shoulders, canting his hips up because he wanted him deeper, all the way in, even if it burned and tore him. Sam’s hand around him was almost an afterthought compared to the sensation of him coming in his ass, so without even fully realizing it Dean came too, shooting onto Sam’s chest and pectoral muscles in incandescent ropes of white. 

The weight of Sam’s body collapsed on top of Dean was almost too much to breathe under, but he made no move to shove him off. Instead he curled his arms around his brother’s back and held him close, mouth adhered to a tendon in his neck. And this, this they’d never done before either. 

Sam caught Dean’s lips with his own once he’d caught his breath first, and his mouth was so swollen Dean needed to bite it, suck on it, anything, more. After a while Sam tried to pull away, but Dean wouldn’t let him, so Sam started sobbing again, the sounds of it muffled by Dean’s tongue.

Normally after they fucked, one of them stumbled off to drown in his own shame and self recrimination, but neither of them had a place to stumble to tonight, so both of them stayed. Dean kept Sam’s body close, holding him tight by the arm and touching him everywhere long after Sam had licked the come up from both of their bodies and swallowed it and tried to go to sleep. Dean touched his chest, his stomach, his thighs, the soft places behind his knees he’d never thought about before, the divots on either side of his spine and the smooth, rounded bones behind his ear. He knew all of this existed in a distant, shameful way, but he’d spent so much time trying to forget it that it almost seemed new. Now as the grainy orange sun rose in the east, he tried to shore up how impossibly wrong he had been, and instead of forgetting, he tried to remember. 

~*~ 

Davey had been kept up by the sound of the Winchester brothers fucking. Dawn broke, and he was exhausted with the chest clenching nausea of sleeplessness, his heart rabbiting and nervous, his mouth sour and metallic. 

When the sounds began, he thought someone was getting hurt. He’d awakened with the electric sparks of terror in his chest, that expansive sensation of ice crawling over limbs with the onset of dread. He tightened his body around Jade but lay still, imagined how far away the salt-packed sawed-off was, listening hard. Then he heard Sam’s voice, and everything changed. _Always would have let you, Dean. God, just, fucking_ \-- cut through the air, which Davey suddenly realized smelled half-baked and wet and tangy with sex. _Oh_ , he thought, the dread replaced with another feeling, something darker and heavier. _That_. 

He remembered with a painful clarity the sucker punch of shock that hit him square in the chest yesterday after the croat attack, the unfathomable picture of Sam’s and Dean’s mouths getting closer until they could get no closer, and yet they did, sliding together so tightly Davey knew that even though he couldn’t see their tongues, they were inevitably touching, twining. He squeezed his eyes shut, wishing he could stop his sense of hearing as easily as his sense of sight. Burying his face into the sleep-warm back of Jade’s neck, he tried to focus on the sound of crickets, but there were no crickets now that the world was ending. 

Yesterday, Jade acted like he’d known. Davey briefly wondered if Sam had told him during one of their private salt-packing talks, but he couldn’t envision Sam Winchester volunteering that kind of information about himself. Whatever information that might be. Davey wasn’t sure what the kiss had meant between them, but he was sure it hadn’t been the first time. He knew what certainty between lovers looked like, and he had seen it in the way their bodies had converged like tectonic plates, ever moving and meant to collide. 

There was a deep, ripped-up moan to Davey’s left, and his entire body rippled into uncomfortable tension. It wasn’t that he was shocked at this point, or even repulsed by them. It made sense, that the Winchester brothers fucked. Once Davey thought about it, it seemed like there was no other alternative. 

He thought about his own brother, the handful of times they’d been young and curious and locked the door to examine each other, the clumsy, innocent jacking off that siblings do sometimes. He didn’t know much about the Winchesters' early history save for the impression that it hadn’t been anything like his, no after school sports or family dinners or middle school dances to pretend you were too cool for. He thought they might have been _always_ like this, warriors, soldiers, with nothing to love or depend on but each other. If Davey was sure of _anything_ regarding the Winchester brothers, it was that they loved one another. Boundlessly, suicidally, illogically, inescapably. They were fucking to his left right now, and the fact that they were brothers had no sway in Davey’s feelings towards it. Regardless, he didn’t want to _hear_ it. He felt invasive, filthy, like he was infiltrating the sacred rite of some religion he wasn’t a member of. 

Bodies moved together, grunts and scrapes and moans and the solid thump of hip bones locking. Davey tried not to hear it, but he couldn’t not, his whole head was filled with it until his own hips began to move on their own accord, half-awake involuntary thrusts against the heat of the body in front of him. He wasn’t turned on, not actively, anyway. His flesh was merely responding to the sound of sex in a Pavlovian fashion, and as soon as he realized he was doing it he stopped, eyes stinging and teeth gritted together. 

_Why are they doing this right now? Why couldn’t they have gone to the car?_ he thought disconnectedly. He heard voices, quiet and muffled and wet though wordless, and that he was thankful for. He suffered through it, head bent and heart pounding and hand a tight, sweating thing against the softness of Jade’s stomach, until the distinct prayer _come in me, Sammy,_ hit the sky and Davey’s stomach flipped over, threads of confusion and sickness and deep, desperate sadness running through him, sewing him together. _They’re doing this because they’re worried it’s the last time_ , Davey thought suddenly, so suddenly it seemed like someone else’s voice, a foreign source outside himself. _Because the devil’s real and we’re meeting him tomorrow_. A wild, directionless bolt of terror coursed through Davey, a feeling close to panic, close to regret, but not either making his hands tingle. _At least I loved_ , he thought, which didn’t make sense but felt anchorlike, an answer. He squeezed Jade hard as Sam and Dean came in near unison, the tent filled with their sweaty, dirty, iron and leather and salt smell. 

It should have been over. Davey wanted it to be over; Jade was stirring in his arms and winding one calloused hand up to touch Davey’s him reassuringly in his sleep, and Davey wanted that to be the only thing in the world, the last thing he felt on the last night before he faced a death full of eternal hellfire. “Please, please God,” Davey whispered to himself, even though it was a stupid, hypocritical thing to do and to say. But he didn’t mean _god_ , he didn’t mean anything but the need to hear his own voice in a muffle against Jade, anything to drown out the sounds that should have been ending. 

Sam and Dean murmured and sobbed well into dawn, and with each increment of light that flooded into the tent and past Davey’s scrunched eyelids, he became increasingly more terrified. If the Winchester brothers were having their last supper, then Davey should have been taking his, too, but he was too sick to eat a damn thing.


End file.
